Chapter 2: The Robot

The Robot came into this world without a boom. There was no lightning bolt to awaken a Frankenstein-like humanoid. No, his creator assembled The Robot’s body casually, like a tired old man tying his shoes for yet another day’s work. The Robot’s chassis clicked together with an icy, metallic ring: a cold beginning to a life in the void.

I first met The Robot early on in my life, walking by a puddle on the sidewalk. Our gaze met through the puddle’s murky water. I smiled, a greeting that he soon returned. We became fast friends, playing board and card games most afternoons. But one game united us above the rest: No Limit Texas Holdem. We battled over countless heads up matches, our deck of cards growing more and more weathered with each deal. Somehow, The Robot always found a way to eke a few extra pennies out of me.

Our love for the game of No Limit Texas Holdem continued into our adulthood, where we both frequented the Federal Port poker room. We battled (as grinders do). Time after time, The Robot still seemed to get the best of me.

He approached each spot in a tight, calculated vacuum. I fancied myself a feel player; I relied on my intuition, incorporating my energy reads of the others at the table into my decisions. But my magic instinctual abilities all too often led to the same endgame when I faced The Robot: “Ah, yes,” The Robot would chuckle to me in a weezing, computerized voice as the dealer dragged my chips away. “My solver module recently added support for 3-bet pots 300bb deep against mid-twenties wannabe grinders that hate themselves.”

I could take his melancholy taunting most days. But one fateful day, after a string of energy reads gone wrong, I needed to cool down.

I walked into the restroom and splashed water on my face, hoping for a bit of clarity. Alone for a moment, I had time to collect myself. I recited the words to an all too familiar hymn: “It was out of your control,” I muttered to myself. Lulled into a sense of safety for a moment, my heart froze as I heard that cursed 8-bit voice: “You look like a fish out of water!” exclaimed The Robot.

I turned around, expecting to see The Robot behind me. But no one was there. Was I just hearing things? As I turned back to the sink, my gaze locked into two retinas staring back at me. But they weren’t my own. The Robot, in his full bionic glory, motionlessly returned my gaze. In a moment of fleeting lucidity, it all came to me: The Robot and I were one and the same. Master and apprentice trapped in one body, cemented in an eternal battle between blazing emotion and cool logic.

I thought The Robot had been my enemy. His pure calculations and impenetrable logic had always guarded a fortress that I could never infiltrate. But it was my own humanity that, all this time, kept me on the other side of the moat from poker greatness. Could I cast that piece of myself away to become the GTO wizard I knew that, deep down, I truly was?

Without hesitation, I accepted my metamorphosis into The Robot. All of the highs and lows of my previous existence dissipated into my own internal Nash equilibrium. At long last: I was one with the solver, Monte Carlo simulations coursing through my veins.

I returned to my seat at the poker table. A new journey lay before me: no longer would I be bogged down with the baggage of my exploit-based plays. I was now an Arctic icebreaker, capable of slicing through the frigid waters, at any stakes, of No Limt Holdem. Knowing the true imperviousness of my new GTO play, my focus returned to the cards before me. The faintest hint of a smile curled at the corner of my ice cold lips as I opened 3♥️2♥️ UTG.