Raymond Oss is a psychoanalyst in San Bruno, CA. In his free time, a recreational poker player. Saturday mornings, he tells his wife he's headed for tai chi, then drives to a casino near his house called Artichoke Joe's. But soon, his wife Sharon is tipped off by their son Jacob, who snooped on Raymond's computer and found his online poker games. Raymond stops going to Artichoke Joe's and instead partakes in a weekly poker game with fellow analysts. One afternoon, Gary Sharpe appears in his office. Gary is an acclaimed poker player, and his wife has told him he needs counseling. In their sessions, Gary is rude and presumptuous, and eventually, he stops coming altogether. It had been thrilling for Oss to have a poker champion as his patient, and privately satisfying that Gary was far from perfect and needed his help. A year later, Raymond is back playing at Artichoke Joe's when he runs into Gary. They are cordial in their greetings, and Gary convinces Raymond to stay at the table and play a game with him. Against his better judgment, Raymond does—and is dealt incredibly good cards. Soon, everyone has folded except for Raymond and Gary, and Gary keeps pushing and pushing to up their bets, until they are playing for $50,000. Raymond tries to tell Gary to fold; he doesn't want to take his money and he knows he has a winning hand. But Gary refuses, angry and revved up by now, and when they finally flip over their cards, Gary has an impossibly good hand that beats Raymond's. Raymond is speechless, weeping, incredulous as to what he's done. Gary comforts him with a sneer.