You won't ever understand your opponents until you first understand yourself.

Sometimes the best way to play poker is to step away from the table. Joey spent the next two nights at home instead of going to play somewhere. He went back through his memories of all the times he had used his ability, trying to understand just how it worked and how he could potentially control it.

Whenever someone came within a short distance of him, it would activate, but not to a high degree like when he was playing poker. At the poker table, his focus would ramp up. Each player became a target full of tiny points and intricacies that he would monitor subconsciously. Somehow, he could feel how they felt in his chest, think how they thought in his head.

Joey knew he needed to approach his ability more logically if he wanted to regulate it. He decided to refer to the way it functioned as he went about his day as passive empathy or passive mode, and the hypersensitive version that would awaken at the poker table as active mode.

In passive mode, he would become tired but it would happen over the course of many hours. Within a short time frame, It would only become a problem if he was assaulted by extremely powerful emotions or an overwhelming number of people. This was always on in the background but it was manageable. As he became more tired, the quality of his play would deteriorate, but it was a gradual decline.

In active mode, he would become exhausted within an hour or two. The consequences went far beyond his play deteriorating; He couldn't even keep his eyes open. So far, active mode had only triggered subconsciously, whenever he felt a threat or challenged, whether that was at the poker table or somewhere else.

Over the past couple of days, he had tried to reflect on the specifics of these triggers. Whenever it triggered at the poker table, it had applied to everyone there for as long as he played. During the tournament, having felt the pressure of a challenging and unusual situation, it was triggered with every single player at his table, and since he kept switching tables, it wiped him out.

'If I could just get control of when active mode triggers...No, that could take a very long time. If I could just narrow down the focus so it only focused on one or two players, that would be enough to keep my exhaustion level in check...' Joey walked around his house and did errands as he thought about his problem.

'In the first place, active mode initiates from a threat response...if I could manage my perception of the source of the threat, but how...' A long time passed as Joey went about his day. After a while, he had nothing else to do and sat on his bed. He pondered for a long time with his eyes closed.

Suddenly, his eyes shot open. 'I've got it!' Joey was ecstatic. 'No...calm down. I won't know if it'll work until I try it in a real game...'

Not long after that moment, he got a phone call from Andrew. "Joe, I'm not sure if you'll be interested considering what happened last time, but I just wanted to give you a heads up that there's a freeroll at PR again tomorrow...You wanna come?"

'Seems like I'll get a chance sooner than expected.' Joey grinned. "Of course! Meet you out front again at 4? Ok, see you then." He texted Angelo asking for a day off tomorrow. After putting down the phone, he laid back on his bed and closed his eyes. It was the most restful sleep he had in a long time, the relieved sleep of a man who just solved his biggest problem.

***

The next day as he met Andrew outside and walked up the stairs to the poker club, he felt a faint excitement. It wasn't the same feeling he experienced the first day he visited the club--an anticipation for the new and interesting. Instead, it was more like the expectation that he was about to open a new chapter in life.

When they entered, the tournament was almost about to start. Andrew and Joey just barely made it in time to register. There was a huge list of people once again, but the specifics of the tournament were the same. This time, Joey wasn't unfamiliar with the situation, so he didn't feel any anxiety. He was able to go into the competition with a clear mind.

Soon, the club staff passed around the chips to all of the players, followed by the dealers taking their seats. Joey was looking forward to it...to testing his theories, to playing better this time and reaching his potential. There was tension in the air as there always was at the beginning of these events. It was the pressure of future challenges, the thrill of unlimited possibilities.

As the tournament director approached the tables, one by one the players turned their gazes towards him. Quickly, there was a room of players staring at that red light, itching for the moment it would turn green, so they could ram the gas as hard as they could. They revved their engines, gripped their steering wheels tightly, and waited for the decisive moment. The director looked at his watch for a second, before finally clicking a button.

*BEEP*

"Tournament start!"

Off to the races.