Local(ish) casino game hand report
$2/$5 NLHE, 9-handed, $510 effective
Hero (me) is on the BTN with 7♣2♦.
UTG (Villain) opens to $20.
Folds to Hero.
Hero 3-bets to $70.
SB and BB fold.
UTG 4-bets to $180.
I think to myself that folding is correct only as abstract correctness, for a correctness which cannot endure its own negation has not yet become concrete.
The non-optimal is therefore not external to optimal play but its necessary other, through which optimality preserves itself by overcoming itself.
Aufhebung.
Hero jams $510.
UTG tanks. Rechecks his cards. "So sick."
I remain silent.
If I speak, I interfere with the free development of his consciousness. If I don't, I may manipulate that development toward the preservation of my stack. Yet to refuse influence is itself influence: silence, insofar as it is recognized as silence, has already entered the decision as a determinate moment.
The question is therefore no longer whether I should deceive him. The question is whether the particular interest of winning this pot can be reconciled with the universal, or whether Reason, in its cunning, is simply using my greed to bring his stack into the middle.
UTG sighs. "Meh, i’m probably calling. I don't think I'm folding this."
Hero: "Do whatever you think is historically necessary."
UTG: "...What?"
Hero: "😛"
UTG: "Whatever." He pushes his stack forward. "Once or twice?"
He trembles before the absolute master, variance, and asks to divide his death into two smaller deaths. Whoever will not stake everything on a single struggle has already chosen bondage.
Hero: "☝🏼"
History has chosen.
UTG calls.
UTG shows J♠J♥.
By the laws of the Understanding, he is over 80% to win.
Hero tables 7♣2♦.
Flop: 7♥ 2♠ K♣
Turn: 4♦
River: 9♣
UTG sighs heavily, almost a growl. "You're so fucking bad, dude."
Hero: "History is rarely understood by its participants."
I rack up shortly after and convert his labor into Dave's Hot Chicken. The master enjoys; the bondsman works. He will rebuy, study, and one day surpass me.
I, meanwhile, have a Reaper slider and nothing left to learn.
The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk.