It's about 2am. We've been at the table a couple of hours. The blinds are rising quickly. It's pre-flop. He raises. I check my cards again. I re-raise. Everyone else folds. It's his turn to act.
It's just me and him.
On the surface, we're polar opposites. He's the adventurer, the nomadic risk-taker who hitchhiked his way to Lisbon. Me, the affable family man who likes his home comforts and plane seats with extra leg room. But that's just on the surface... after all we are both here, in the same 5 star hotel, at the same poker table, facing off.
Through the furrow of his eyebrows he gives me a steely look.
He goes all in.
I flash my pearly whites... "call".
He shows Ace King.
He mutters some words indicating that he thinks I have an under-pair at best. He is a gambling man and fancies his chances in a coin flip... I'm sure, like me, he has been in a "race" at the poker table hundreds of times before.
Well this time, he's going to have to go some to catch me and my "American Airlines"!
I show my two Aces.
Neither the flop, turn or river could save my travelling Mexican friend. I had him covered for chips so we bid him farewell.
