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Chapter 42 of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick finds the narrator, Ishmael, meditating at length about “The Whiteness of the Whale,” referring, of course, to the beast of the book’s title and object of the mad, obsessive quest of the Pequod’s captain Ahab.

Ishmael’s goal in the chapter is to attempt to put into words how the whale’s whiteness somehow heightens the terror it produces. As part of the effort he collects dozens and dozens of examples of whiteness and its symbolic value as demonstrated throughout history and all over the globe.

Among his examples Ishmael refers to Lima, site of this week’s LAPT Main Event where it appears well over 150 players have already taken seats for today’s Day 1b.

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Ishmael alludes to Lima’s history of earthquakes, in fact describing “her suburban avenues of house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards.”

However, perhaps thanks to his experience as a mariner, he insists these images associated with the city do not cause him to feel fear. Rather, it is the whiteness of the fog that often envelopes the coastal city in an uncanny, ghostly, inscrutable cloud, thereby making “tearless Lima, the strangest, saddest city thou can’st see.”

“For Lima has taken the white veil,” he continues, “and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe.”

Just as Ishmael has trouble pinpointing what it is about the whiteness that causes his feelings of fear, so, too, is it hard to conclude definitively what Melville intends by having his character deliver such a dissertation. But it is probably safe to say there is something about the way Lima’s “white veil” covers over and hides from the mariner possible dangers — be they real (like rocks along the coastline) or imagined (even worse) — that most increases the discomfort being described.

One could say every hand of a poker tournament involves players attempting to hide their intentions from one another, veiling their true purposes in fog-like shrouds that cause uncertainty and apprehension in opponents unable to read the “blank slate” they are presenting. The terrors thankfully never rise to the level of those described by Ishmael, but they can produce considerable tension nonetheless.

The first level of today’s play saw one such hand develop between Fabian Ortiz — back today with a re-entry after busting on Day 1a — and a lone opponent.

After a raise by Ortiz from late position and a call by his opponent from the blinds, the pair together saw the flop come 6♦ Jâ™  9♦ . When checked to Ortiz bet 375 and his opponent called, then the turn came the 4♦ . Ortiz’s opponent checked again, and this time he bet 550 — about half the pot. His opponent then check-raised to 1,200, and evincing the same stoicism with which he’d been acting all along, Ortiz called.

The river was the A♣ . This time Ortiz’s opponent led for 2,000, and with the same blank look Ortiz dug out 4,500 chips to raise.

At that Ortiz’s opponent looked up and across the table. If Ishmael were playing the hand against Ortiz, he might employ hyperbole here to say what he saw as he gazed into Ortiz’s expressionless visage.

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Fabian Ortiz

Perhaps he’d go on about “heartless voids” and the like as he studied further. Perhaps he’d imagine he felt a tremor underfoot, as though the earth itself was transmitting a warning signal to him. And perhaps he’d decide that Ortiz’s raise represented a particular, frightening message…

“Call me Ishmael.”

Whatever Ortiz’s opponent actually was thinking about the situation, he did decide to call. He wanted to learn more about what exactly he was looking at across the table.

He soon found out, as Ortiz flipped over K♦ 5♦ for a turned flush. Deciding against remaining too inscrutable himself, his opponent showed his hand, too — A♦ 9♣ for a second-best two pair.

In the larger scheme of a tournament in which thousands of such moments will be occurring, the hand will ultimately be eclipsed by later, more significant conflicts as players repeatedly attempt to thwart one another by covering over their intentions with ambiguous, impenetrable veils.

But after all of that, somewhere in the distance… eventually… thankfully… the fog of uncertainty regarding the tournament’s outcome will be lifted.

Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

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