After quitting my job as a teacher, I have become a student studying for a master's degree at this school. In my free time, I am a part-time poker player. Some might even say I am a gambler. This is a misleading statement, as poker is not a game of luck but a game of skill. I play poker not for the thrill of gambling but for the money to secure the future I want.

 

That night was the night. Crossing through the street of chaos, the usually busy road was empty of cars and filled with burning trash. The air felt extra heavy on my shoulders. The city was so familiar yet so strange to me, for a reason I myself could not explain.

 

Here I was, in an old commercial building well hidden in the heart of the city. By the elevator, I went up to the fifth floor and stepped into a small room filled with the toxic gas of cigarettes. The game had already started. The dealer handed me a combination of chips of different colours. ‘What's the buy-in?' I asked the dealer. ‘The big blind and the small blind are both 100 dollars. The yellow chip is 100 dollars, the blue one is 500 dollars, and the red one is 1000 dollars. There is 30,000 dollars' worth of chips in front of you,' the dealer replied like a robot answering players' questions. Professional yet so cold. That was my first time playing with such a high stack. I could cover all my tuition fees in one night. However, if I lost, only God knew what I would do in the future.

 

An hour passed by, and I had already lost 3,000 dollars in such a short period. I felt nothing but frustration that I had only won some small pots but lost almost every big pot. The air conditioner released a weird smell that was not the taste of the sweet grape-flavoured vape from that beautiful female player sitting beside me. It was something peppery and spicy. My eyes bled tears uncontrollably while some people in the room coughed. The dealer shut down the air conditioner swiftly, like it was not the first time it happened. The temperature kept rising. The green artificial fabric of the poker table seemed to almost stream out an uncanny green smoke. No one could breathe in this room, but nobody left this room before they got what they wanted. The game continued.

 

I looked down at my hand, King-Queen of spades. Finally a worthy hand. I put four yellow chips into the pot and made the price of poker 400 dollars. Everybody folded except a mysterious man wearing round sunglasses who had smoked cigarettes all night. He threw four yellow chips onto the table as well, flexing a Rolex Panda Daytona on his wrist in the process. The flop came: 2 of spades, Jack of spades, and 8 of hearts. I had a flush draw. My opponent checked. I threw a blue chip in the hope that the man would just give up. He did not fold his cards. Instead, he re-raised me. ‘4,000 dollars,' he announced with no emotion at all. I did not go through everything to come here to fold, so I called. The pot was 9,000 dollars by then. The turn came 10 of hearts. My hand improved to a combo draw of flush and straight. I checked to see what the man would do next. The man threw another five red chips into the pot. What should I do? The man clearly had a strong hand while I only had king-high. What was I going to win? Maybe poker was gambling after all. I had invested too much money in this pot. Please bring a good card to finish my draw. I put the matching chips on the table. The river came 9 of hearts, a scary card indeed. A heart flush and a straight were complete. Without much thinking, the man bet 2,000, a strangely small amount. I was clearly beaten here, as I had nothing. I was a poor dog under that man's shoes. A pot over 20,000 dollars, the biggest pot I had played in my life. I looked down at my chips helplessly, there was about the same amount as the pot. There was another way to win, perhaps the only way to win this pot. Bluffing. A pointless struggle of a dying man, some might say. I took a deep breath. ‘All-in,' I announced calmly and pushed all the remaining chips to the centre of the poker table. Red, blue, and yellow chips mixed together, they blended into an odd yet exciting scene observed by everyone in the room. Multiple cracking sounds like fireworks appeared almost at the same time. The lights of the room suddenly shut down. The room was pitch black. The lingering blurry noise from the streets slowly turned to complete silence. I could hear nothing but the heartbeat and the breathing of my own. I felt nothing but great relief. At that moment, I was alive.