The Game

     He could barely stand. The room was spinning, but in a good way. In the way that he could jump up and fly. How he could rescue his princess from a castle by violently fighting an army of soldiers and a dragon. He could do anything he wanted, and nobody could stop him. The entire party was focused on him; cheering and shouting. It was the type of loud cry that would leave them speaking with a raspy voice for a few days after the night. He could barely sit up in the padded chair, but his excitement was everlasting. The dull yet expressive look on his face told the story. He was winning.
        The large crowd around him, and the waitresses replacing his drink make him feel like a king-the main attraction of the night. His hands were surprisingly calm with the poisonous amount that he had already drank. He steadily took the cards dealt to him, looked at them, and decided his next move. To hit or not to hit is the question, and he always knew the correct answer. Everyone knew that he was a hot streak, he was incredibly lucky. Luck is what the game is about. The luck of the cards, as they say. But Roy had a different mindset. He didn’t believe in lucky. He believed in skill and knowledge to succeed just as he has.
     Roy was a professor in the California Institute of Technology. He taught Calculus, Statistics, Finite Mathematics, and Number Theory. On a steady six figure salary, Roy lived a rather luxurious life. He taught his students relatively late into the day, drove a nice Porsche, came home to his one bedroom studio apartment, and ate a lavish meal that he cooked. Repeating the same schedule for years, life can get pretty dull, regardless of how luxurious it is. Roy needed some adrenaline in his life. He needed to get away from his cautious life and do something exciting. He drove past the same advertisement every day with no mind to it, but it caught his eye once. A suited man sitting at a green felted table, holding playing cards and having chips stacked inches up in front of him, with gorgeous girls on each of his sides, and a crowd of people watching was all that was displayed along with an address a few miles away from where he lived. The smile on the man’s face was enormous. This was when he decided he needed to do this.
     Back at the table, the crowd was silent, listening for the words that would determine the fate of what would happen. “Hit me,” he says while the crowd eagerly awaits the card dealt to him. The next card is dealt, and the value of the card is no surprise to Roy. Using every player’s card’s face value, the current score is eight. Therefore, the cards that are still in the shoe must have an excess of eight big cards. The other extra cards are assumed to be spread evenly amongst the rest of the cards in the shoe.
     Roy’s chance of winning increases when the cards that are still in the shoe have a higher than normal proportion of tens and aces. It decreases when the shoe has a higher proportion of small cards. He knows when to play and when to quit in order to win the pot.
     Every time he noticed himself win, he had a significant feeling. One he had not felt since he could remember. The feeling of winning could not be replaced by anything else. The blood pumping through every vein was mistaken for satisfaction, making a man feel empowered and unstoppable. Every muscle was strengthened, and a shiver was sent up the spine. With a shallow breath but a fast heartbeat, everything was in slow motion. This unmistakable rush was delivered repeatedly was breathtakingly pleasurable.
     The thought of a mistaken mathematical arithmetic kept Roy at the edge of his seat. With no worry that he did anything wrong, the pure factor of chance skewed that data making anything possible. Would the next card give him 21 or possible 13? Will the one after that bust him or give him 21? This game had a large factor of chance and impossible-to-be-calculated probability. Anything that did not involve chance was quickly calculated by him, always guaranteeing a victory and an excited crowd.
     With no surprise, the dealer gives Roy his next card. Roy knew, that mathematically calculated, the odds were in his favor and he would win, yet again. “Blackjack!,’ the dealer yelled and the crowd started screaming. Roy entered the casino and took his seat at the table with a mere $200. Hours passed and he repeatedly won, currently holding approximately $62,000 in chips.
     "Hiiiiiiiiiiit me," he says in monotone, already expecting a win. He flips his cards, and reveals his two kings totaling 20, 1 short of the blackjack needed for an instant-win. The dealer proceeds to respond "Player has 20, house has 13... house has 16, house has 22, house has busted, player wins." And the crowd does what it's purpose was to do. Everything was swell. The rush. The money. The crowd. Nothing could go wrong.
"Sir," he heard as he felt a hand on his shoulder, "Would you mind coming with us, please?" The stiff and cold grip was a little painful, but it was nothing that couldn't be shrugged off. Roy looked up. "Hey, don't you see I'm playing here? If you really need a friend to talk to, go find someone else." The confident reply sparked a bit of anger in the man. Roy felt another hand on his other shoulder and the other man spoke with a very low tone "You don't understand. Sir, we need to talk to you... right... now." As they slowly pulled Roy out of his chair, hesitantly against his will, and began herding him through the tables and machines, a few disappointing 'awws' were heard from the crowd as it slowly dispersed.
     Confidently and drunkenly walking, sandwiched by two suited men, Roy was a bit worried about what might happen, but that worry was overtaken by his continuous rush. Anything that could or would happen could be handled by Roy with ease. Nothing but the repetitive dings of slot machines and yells echo the casino. By this point the tip of Roy's toes are caressing the ground as he is taken toward a door. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the man on his right put his right hand against a panel. The panel quickly changed green with a whoosh, and the man raised his hand by inches never leaving the side of the wall. Four light beeps followed by a loud click finished the decoding of the large for that was finally unlocked.
     A light breeze hit the group of three as they passed through the passage. A loud thud bounced off the thick walls, barely escaping through the narrow cracks in the ceiling, leaving the men in full silence other than the scraping of Roy's shoes on the ground. Roy was completely clueless. He thought the men were just helping him. He didn’t need it, but nevertheless he was thankful for the moment. In his drunken stupor, being dragged, everything was alright he thought. Only the men knew what would come next.
     The faint, constant, scraping of his toes along the floor seemed to blend into the silence. They must’ve been walking for a few minutes before they approached another door. This time, just a large, metal door. There was no lock that could be seen on it. In fact, there wasn't a single shape or three-dimensional design on the door at all. It just looked like a large piece of metal with a doorknob on it. Next to it, almost in-line with the wall, a he saw one of the men put a door into a small, almost not visible slot. It fit perfectly, a light flashed green, and another loud clunk was heard. The men opened the door and darkness escaped from the room. The darkness held a tangible sense of fear which engulfed Roy. His happy and excited feeling has now transferred into a sense of urgency. He knew that whatever was coming was not good. he knew that he needed to escape quickly and swiftly. However, there wasn't a hint of a chance of doing so. The continuous firm grip by the men made it impossible to go anywhere but where they steered Roy to.
     A switch was then flipped, and a light switched on. The room was sized as where the two bulbs illuminated the entire room very clearly. One of the lights was flickering, but it revealed the small room very well. It was entirely empty except for a chair in the middle, where Roy was now forced into sitting on, and a toolbox on a table in the corner. The two men, holding to their silence, walked toward the door, and leaned on the either side, never taking their gaze off of Roy.
     What seemed like an eternity in awkward silence, the large door swung open, groaning like someone who just woke up and is trying to get out of bed. The silhouette of a man could be seen in the doorway. His biceps were the size of footballs and his shoulders the size of softballs. He had to lean forward a little to gain entrance through the gateway. He walked straight and leaned over until his face was inches away from Roy's. "So, tell me how an unheard of, amateur player, turned $200 into tens of thousands? Because the camera's seem to notice your constant staring at the cards dealt and your lips vibrating. I assume that the staring was trying to memorize the cards and the vibrating of the mouth was mumbling under your breath trying to calculate how to win," he said, "and I'm sure you know that card counting is very, very illegal." He gave almost no time for a response.
     Roy's face jerked to the right while quickly exhaling the air that he kept in him. The left side of his face felt like thousands of needles piercing his skin. The pain was unbearable, but there was nothing that could be done. Roy felt a warm liquid coming down his chin, whose trail started at his lip. Seconds later, the same feeling was transitioned to the right side of his face, as he jerked in the opposite direction as before. Immediately after, the exact same feeling to the other side. The left side of his face hurt slightly more than the right due to the doubled effect. The stream of warm liquid could be felt coming from his left nostril and his lip, slowly crawling down his face. The room was entirely silent with the exception of the moaning of pain by Roy. Roy felt the hair on his head being pulled, as if someone was gardening and his pieces of hair were the weeds that were banned from that garden. "I hope that you will reconsider doing what you did today in our casino. Here are the $300 in chips. You should thank me, I was considering not giving you any." The large man left, and the two men approached Roy, grabbing each one of his arms and dragging him through a different hallway than he came through, and tossing him out of the door leading to a dark alley. The door shut with a loud thud, and Roy was left drunk and in the dark.
     Everything seemed like it happened in a matter of minutes. Roy woke up. He was knocked unconscious when he hit the ground. The night went by so quick in a blur. Roy slowly pulled himself up, using a trashcan to help him balance. "That was... exciting," he thought. He managed to regain his ability to walk, and traveled through the dark street without a location. He was reflecting on what had happened that night, attempting to piece it together from the pieces that he remembered. "We're definitely doing this again next weekend," he concluded.