The Cards You’re Dealt

I watched a movie on Netflix the other night. I chose it solely because it was a movie about high-stakes poker games, and I’ve been researching poker lately for a novel I’m working on. (Well, that, and Idris Elba was in it. Enough said.) 

The movie—Molly’s Game—was excellent, both in the poker tips I picked up but mostly in the rapid-fire incredibly clever writing. Who is this? I wondered, and when the end credits ran I was unsurprised to see it was written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. If you know me at all, you know he’s way high up in my pantheon of writing gods. So anything he can teach me about poker, or the world of high-stakes poker? I’m listening.

I’m actually not altogether convinced I’m smart enough to play poker, but I’m finally starting to understand it.

My own relationship with cards is much simpler. I’m solitary by nature, and one of the ways I take a quick break from work is by playing a fast hand or two of computer solitaire. It’s undemanding and relaxing, especially given the way I play: I cheat.

I never think of it as cheating, of course. I look at the hand I’ve dealt and if I don’t like it, I deal again. When I like the hand, I play it. I remember my former husband’s shock when I mentioned my practice; he said it wasn’t the “right” way to play. I scoffed at the whole concept—it’s solitaire, for heaven’s sake—and carried on doing precisely what I wanted.

Because of watching the movie and thinking about poker in general, I had cards on my mind anyway when yesterday I took a break and brought up World of Solitaire on my computer. And somehow it all made me hyper-aware of that sense of cheating, of making the cards work in my favor.

Have you noticed how clichés work—we get so used to them that we forget what they first meant, why they became popular in the language? Staring at the screen, I heard the words, play the cards you’re dealt. I’m quite sure I’ve heard and read the expression many times, and I’m equally sure I’ve never given it a second thought. I know what it’s come to mean—that we find ourselves in situations we didn’t choose but must live with as gracefully as possible because we don’t have options.

But do we really have no options? Am I truly cheating when I decide which solitaire hands to play and which to discard? A life lesson for me has always been, there’s never just one way to do something. If you try something and fail, then there must be a different approach, or tool, or resource to use.

Is that the same thing as saying, if you don’t like the hand you’re dealt, deal again? I don’t think so. There are too many factors outside our control. The child born into poverty doesn’t have the option of saying they’d prefer to be a trust-fund baby. The woman standing in the ruins of her southern hurricane-decimated house can’t decide she’d rather live in Montréal this week. The man on the ventilator can’t have a do-over and remember to wear his face mask. So it’s a little facile to say, just reshuffle the cards, isn’t it?

Ah, but that’s the inherent messiness of life. No one adage fits all situations. The cleverness of a paradox is also its lie. We can’t fit the universe into thoughts or words, no matter how hard we try to wedge it in. So the truth is somewhere in the center of it all, couched in the dreadful word “sometimes.” Sometimes you can reshuffle. Sometimes you can’t. As we get older and more experienced, we might be better able to discern which time is which. Or not.

Or not. I never thought I’d say this, but there’s some wisdom in a country song—Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler. Knowing what to do with the cards in our hand may not be as efficacious as being able to determine what they are, but it’s a hell of a lot better than just giving up because you don’t like them.