Page 74 of Ideal Life

When she woke up, it was already early afternoon. Exhaustion and sleeping in seemed to be her default state these days because of the watch, and being a sloth was not how Talia liked to picture herself. In a disgusted huff, she kicked the covers off too forcefully, propelling them halfway across her small studio into a heap, half falling off the coffee table. Of course, that also knocked over a glass of water she’d left there overnight, which took it upon itself to spill onto the carpet, as if it, too, were protesting the status quo.

“Not helpful,” she grumbled.

But then she remembered the accident from last night, and Talia blinked at her arms and legs. No road rash. Her hip and ankle were perfectly fine, evidenced by the duvet on the floor and the spilled water. Of course, she knew that the watch erased everything, and yet after all these rewinds, it was still difficult for the scientist part of her mind to wrap itself around how her injured body could undo the biological harm to its cells.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. As late as it was on Saturday, there were already a dozen or so notifications waiting for her. A new one came in while she was putting on her Omni 3Ds.

Summer Million update: Level 6 live stream starts now!

“Oh my god—Sam!” Talia had forgotten that this weekend was Summer Million, the poker tournament he’d signed up to play in. Was he still in it? He’d said there were two thousand players.

She asked her Omni 3Ds to search the list of current players.

Samuel Chang is playing at table 23 in level 6.

(In poker, they said “levels” instead of “rounds.” So Sam had made it through the first five levels.) Good, good, good.

The way the Summer Million worked was you paid $5,000 to “buy in” to the tournament. That got you 20,000 chips (everyone started with the same amount, and you couldn’t buy more), and then you just kept playing until you lost all your chips.

Out of the two thousand players, only the top 10 percent got prize money. It started at $8,000 for 200th place. But since you’d already spent $5,000 on the buy-in fee, that was really only $3,000 net.

Sam needed to do significantly better than 200th place to make a difference for his bookstore.

Talia pulled up his tournament history and skimmed it to get a sense of how he’d been playing. She was still in her pajamas and her mouth tasted like she’d sucked on an old sock all night, but that didn’t matter right now.

In level 1 and level 2, Sam had won some small pots and increased his chip count a little. 250 players eliminated, 1,750 left.

In levels 3, 4, and 5, he’d managed to hold steady by folding most of his hands. A lot of players in open tournaments like Summer Million chased emotions and let their egos lead. Sam, however, let game theory guide him logically, and he finished those rounds with 45,000 chips. The number wasn’t equivalent to real dollars, but it still mattered, because the more chips Sam had, the more leeway he had to bet, and the longer he could stay in the tournament.

Now at the start of level 6, there were 900 players remaining. He’d survived the culling of more than half the competitors, but he still had a long way to go to 200th place or better.

“Come on, Sam, you got this,” Talia said, opening the live stream to watch. As usual, it was on a thirty-minute delay to prevent cheating, but this was as up-to-date as Talia would get, so she’d take it. She wondered if his parents were watching the tournament, too.

Sam sat at table 23 with the king of spades and the king of hearts. It was a great hand. He slid 1,200 chips into the pot.

But there were eight other players at the table, including Louise Enger, the intense woman who had bested Sam in the tournament in Cleveland a couple of weeks ago. When it was her turn, she paused, then pushed in 3,600 of her chips.

Confidence? Or a bluff?

The right corner of Sam’s mouth twitched, his tell that Talia hoped was small enough that Louise and the other poker players wouldn’t catch it.

He faced a decision—call the bet or fold his cards.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t see Louise’s cards, but Talia could.

“Fold, Sam,” she urged.

He did the opposite and called.

The dealer spread three community cards: an ace of clubs, seven of spades, and two of diamonds.

“Shit,” Talia said. The ace changed everything—anyone holding one would be ahead of his kings.

Louise bet more, and Sam took the bait.

Then Louise pushed forward her entire stack of chips—enough to eliminate Sam if he called and lost.

He studied her for almost two full minutes in silence.