All In (7 page)

If I know I have another couple hundred dollars in my pocket I can use to buy more chips or enter another game if I
go bust, I'm far more likely to call or raise on a hand I should fold. The fewer marginal hands I play, the more likely I am to survive long enough to make the final table or at least finish in the money without having to hit a miraculous river card.

These were all lessons I was starting to learn.

In addition to reading more poker books, I watched more and more poker on television and recorded tourneys so I could really study the action. For me, poker on television was not entertainment but poker boot camp. Not only did I watch the way competitors played their hands, but I also paid close attention and took copious notes on the way they carried themselves at the table. I decided if I wanted people to respect me as a player, I should act like a serious player.

There was one problem: I didn't know what serious poker players acted like.

As I've mentioned, I look like anything but a card player. I knew if I dressed the way I normally did for work, everyone at the poker table would automatically count my chips as their own.

Watching on television, I noticed most of the top players dressed in all black, so I decided to dress in black when I played. Many of them also wore dark glasses, which I thought looked cool. If it was good enough for the pros, it was good enough for me. I topped off the look with a ball cap pulled low because that's how my favorite players on television wore theirs.

Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, whose nickname is inspired by his long hair and beard, was one of those favorites. He really does look like Jesus—if Jesus wore all black and a cowboy hat. Of course, he
can pull off the look since he isn't a 5 foot 2 Hmong man.

Looks aside, I learned a lot from watching Chris Ferguson, especially the way he carries himself at the table. He always takes the same amount of time to make a bet, and he never gives off any tells. He almost looks like a statue at the poker table.

I, on the other hand, gave off one clue after another in those early days. I put my hand to my mouth when making a bet, which is a sure sign that someone's bluffing.

Watching pros like Chris Ferguson and another of my favorites, John Juanda, on television, I took note of where they put their hands when they bet, how they handled their chips, and even what they did after folding a hand. If you want to play like the best, you should learn from the best.

I knew, though, that books and televised events could only take me so far. Perhaps the most valuable thing I ever did to improve as a poker player was to humbly ask for advice from players I respected.

Back when I first started playing, several times I came up against a player named Charlie, who had been playing poker a long time. Whenever we faced one another, especially in head-to-head showdowns, it was almost as though he saw my cards before I did.

After one tournament, I spoke to Charlie. “I don't want you to give away all of your secrets, but I'm fascinated by the way you can read other players. Do you mind if I ask you questions from time to time about how I can improve my game?” Thankfully, Charlie agreed, and over the next couple of years, we exchanged e-mails and phone calls.

In addition to Charlie, I asked a few others how they
played certain hands. I noticed some taking notes at the table, so I asked them what exactly they were doing. They told me they noted how important hands played out and what they, along with others at the table, had done.

At the next tournament, I broke out my own notebook. Afterward, I reviewed how I'd played and what I'd done in certain situations.

Then I called Charlie. More than once, I asked, “What should I have done here?”

I also learned to watch people. All of the top poker books say you should never look at your cards as soon as they're dealt. Instead, you should look around the table and watch how your opponents react to their cards. Once your turn comes, then and only then you look. The same is true when the flop comes. Rather than watch the cards, watch other people's reactions to the cards. Good players sit as still as statues, but rookies and amateurs give off signs. They can't help themselves.

Watching other people helped me see some of the mistakes I kept making. By putting my errors next to theirs, I learned how to become a better player.

Too many beginners think poker is all about playing your cards. It isn't. Good players play their opponents. Of course, everyone gets burned by a lucky draw from time to time. The fact that I cashed in on my first tournament demonstrates that. But as I said, I knew luck couldn't carry me where I wanted to go as a player.

Since I played the local cash games and tournaments, I ended up going against some of the same players frequently. All
the regulars knew I was a rookie, and more than one of them planned to take advantage of that.

Right before one of my first tournaments, I was standing in line, waiting to be seated, and one man said, “I have you figured out, Jerry Yang. I know your tells. I hope you brought a lot of money today because I'm going to take it all.”

I smiled and didn't say a word. I knew right off he was trying to put me on tilt, which means playing with a chip on my shoulder or with emotion rather than discipline. A lot of players use this as part of their strategy. Not long after I won the World Series of Poker, one of the top pros tried to get me to play in a cash game with the same kind of taunt. Poker players who compete with emotion soon find themselves with an empty stack.

As luck would have it, this player and I ended up at the same table. He kept right on talking. “I know what you've got in your hand.”

I refused to take the bait.

After a while, he stopped taunting and started muttering. “I don't know how you do it, you lucky b—.” By the end of the round, he was just flat-out mad. He hadn't taken my money; I'd taken his.

Because we played in a lot of the same local tournaments, this happened more than once. The guy became very frustrated. He was a good player, yet for some reason every time I went up against him, the cards fell my way.

Finally, after I took all his chips once again, he looked at me and said, “You're like my f—ing shadow that follows me everywhere I go.”

“Oh, come on,” I said as politely as I could, “there's no need for profanity.”

“I mean it; you are my f—ing shadow.” He shot me the most hateful look.

Afterward, I thought a lot about what this guy had said.
The Shadow.
I believe in turning negatives into positives. The more I thought, the more I liked that label. So much, in fact, that it became my nickname, my poker persona.

Outside of the card room I was Jerry Yang, the mild-mannered psychologist who worked with foster families and at-risk children. But once I put on my black and my dark glasses and pulled my ball cap low, I became The Shadow.

It took a while, but I had finally become a real poker player, at least in my own mind. By my fourth tournament, the locals I played believed it as well. I not only cashed in; I actually won.

Instead of $282, this time I collected $4,000. I was so excited I tipped the dealer $400, more than twice as much as most people tip after a win. I didn't care. I wanted to share my happiness with everyone.

That night, my family and I once again had a great time at Chuck E. Cheese's.

I then put half of my winnings in the family savings account and the other half in my poker bankroll. The next week, I was back at the table, playing my last $25 in the world.

It wouldn't happen overnight, but I knew this path would eventually take me to my ultimate goal: Las Vegas.

4.
Blinds are mandatory bets placed into the pot before the cards are dealt. In Texas Hold 'Em, one player must bet the large blind, and the player immediately to his right must bet the small blind, which is half the size of the large blind. These increase in size as players move up levels of play. Each becomes part of that player's bet should he decide to stay in the hand. Responsibility for placing the blinds moves around the table on each hand.

No one else went to the farm with my father on this particular day. Only me. The two of us left our house at first light and hiked two hours through the jungle to the patch of ground he'd cleared for our next crop.

“We have a lot of work to do, Xao,” he told me as we walked the winding trail descending to our farm. “You need to make sure you pick up every last twig, no matter how small, and put it into the brush pile. Do you understand?”

Even though I was seven, I was expected to work like a man. “Yes, Father.” I struggled to match his pace on the trail, the small basket bouncing on my back.

“The field must be perfectly clear so we can plant next week.”

I didn't realize it at the time, but I am now sure my father knew we would never plant anything in our field. Ever.

The distant sound of cannons and gunfire boomed closer. May was the month for planting in Laos, but May of 1975 was
a bad month to be a soldier in General Vang Pao's army.

“You can count on me, Father. I'll make sure this is your cleanest field ever.”

My father laughed. “I'm sure you will, Xao. I'm sure you will.”

When we reached the field, I set right to work.

My father had already cleared the trees in the field but decided he needed to take out one or two more at the edges. “The shade will keep the rice plants on this side from growing as they should,” he explained, just as his father had taught him, and as I would one day teach my son. It was the Hmong way. At least, it always had been.

My father grabbed his ax and chopped down the first tree. After it fell, he hacked it into pieces small enough to drag to the brush pile in the middle of the field. I scrambled around him, gathering every falling branch. Then we moved on to the next tree and the next, my father chopping while I worked hard to keep up with him.

After about three hours of work, something in the distance caught my father's attention. He dropped his ax and walked toward me, never looking away from whatever had caught his eye.

I didn't pay too much attention to what he was doing. Since we were hunters as well as farmers, I thought my father probably saw a deer or some other animal he might kill for our dinner. When I bent to scoop up another pile of branches, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Leave the sticks, Xao, and come with me.” My father's
tone and expression sent a chill down my spine.

He grabbed my hand, and the two of us moved quickly toward the lean-to he'd built a few weeks earlier on the far end of the field. On a normal workday, the palm roof and open sides provided a shady place for a short break. Up ahead, I saw my uncle walking quickly down the hill toward our field.

I knew something bad must have happened because no one made the two-hour hike from our village to our farm for a purely social visit. “What's wrong, Father?”

“I don't know yet, Xao.”

In retrospect, I believe he knew exactly. Whatever had happened, he'd been expecting it, even though he didn't want to admit it to himself.

My uncle arrived at the lean-to at the same time we did. Before he said a word, I knew something very bad had happened. I'd seen that expression many times. The heaviness on his face told me someone must have died. My grandmother still looked that way when she talked about my mother, who'd died when I was three.

“They've attacked Hin Haw,”
⁵
my uncle said.

I didn't have to ask who “they” were.

My father sighed. “Okay, go back home and do what you need to. Xao and I have to grab some food for the pigs, and then we'll be right behind you.”

I turned to the field.

“Don't worry about the tools, Xao. Leave them. Get your basket. We need to leave right away.”

We made a brief stop at a small stream, and I filled my
basket with
qos dlej
, a large, leafy plant with a slimy, sticky sap, for our pigs. That was the one part of the hike back home that felt routine.

As the chief elder of our village, my father ordered everyone to come to our house that night.

By American standards, the house was not much with its bamboo walls and thatched roof, but in my eyes, it was a mansion. It was the biggest home in the entire village and the only one with running water. Using bamboo pipes, my father had engineered an aqueduct from a nearby stream straight to our front door. Everyone in the village came to our house to get water or do wash. My friends took their showers under our bamboo spigot. I thought my father was a genius.

On this night, though, no one cared about our running water or the size of our house. Nor had anyone taken time to cook dinner or do any of their usual evening chores. As soon as my father and I arrived in the village, word spread and the people dropped everything and headed our way. Those who couldn't get inside our house listened through the cracks in the bamboo walls.

I moved close to my father as he took his place at the front of the crowd, but I didn't come close enough to get in his way. Hmong families take seriously the old adage that children are to be seen but not heard, especially on a night like this.

“Let us pray.” These were my father's first words that night.

I know even atheists have been known to say a prayer or two when things get bad enough, but my father didn't pray
like someone with nowhere else to turn. He prayed with the confidence that God was still in control.

By the time my father said “amen,” the dread that had permeated the room didn't feel quite so powerful, at least not to me. Strength and confidence came over me. I still felt fear, but it was no longer paralyzing.

“By now everyone knows what has happened in Hin Haw,” my father said. “The Pathet Lao and the NVA attacked there, and it's just a matter of time before they arrive.”

Some of the men gasped. A few women sobbed softly.