“What you need to know first and most important of all is that poker is storytelling,” he says. It’s a narrative puzzle. Your job is to put together the pieces. “I know that you’ve already gotten a good start—and Erik is an amazing teacher. But”—and here he foreshadows a realization that it will take me another four or five months to reach myself—“I really hope that you don’t end up choosing the easier way to learn because of time pressure. This is a beautiful game, and I think you have the mind to appreciate it. But you’re not going to be able to take a shortcut.”