In Real Life

by Lawrence Tabak

  Only eight featured matches are on stage, the rest of the games are played in a big barn-like center which is down a long corridor. Somehow I’m not surprised when my first match gets announced as a feature. I try to remember his name which I hear as Lim Jin-Ho. He’s small, even for a young Korean, and his baggy team shirt hangs halfway down his arms.

  An official in a shirt striped like a NFL referee leads us down the corridor and onto the front of the stage where an announcer broadcasts our names. When mine is said, I’m immediately blinded by hundreds of camera flashes and deafened by the screams of thousands of girls. I glance at Jin-Ho and he looks like he might be sick any second.

  I never really thought much about it from the other point of view—the view the player I was facing. When I saw his frightened look I realized, in a flash, what a huge psychological advantage I had. Just being on a top pro team would scare the daylights out of any normal kid, and on top of that being foreign and somewhat famous. I’m guessing he had never played in front of large crowd, let alone one that seemed to be entirely against him.

  The other thing I realize as I win my first two rounds easily is that even though I’m not getting in the kind of training time my teammates are, pounding on a map for eight hours a day was way more than any school kid was getting. Plus every day I was fighting to keep up with players who were among the top hundred in the world. So even if I’m still a little behind the top hundred, I’m now way ahead of where I had been when I first arrived. And the Mordant Isles map is as familiar to me now as the keyboard itself. I can simply flow into the game and for twenty straight minutes pound out as many keystrokes as is possible for me to make—which is more than another person could make just typing nonsense for the same amount of time.

  So I relax and find myself on TV for the final eight, which clearly makes Yeong one happy coach. He tells me that my next round is against a young player with a great future who should be on a pro team as soon as he graduates from high school.

  We battle evenly for close to forty minutes when I noticed one slip from him, a slight misplay on the fourth isle, which hampers his development of an important late-game weapon system. Once I see this gaff it’s just like being a piece up in a chess game. It’s just a matter of trading down until my troops are the only ones left standing.

  With this win, my confidence is at new heights and the last two rounds turn out to be against lesser opponents, and just like that, Korea had its first ever foreign-born seventeen-and-under Starfare champ.

  Yeong is beside himself and the next day comes to breakfast with an array of newspapers and tabloids, all opened to pictures of me competing or accepting the large glass trophy (which now belongs to Team Anaconda, of course).

  “So what do they say?” I ask.

  “Much controversy. They say, no foreigners in national junior tournament again. Next year, no pros allowed. It is all good.”

  Yeong points to a picture and the prominent ANC logo on my shirt. “Great sponsor very happy. Very happy.”

  I’m thinking I must have made up for the nightclub publicity, when Yeong, like he’s reading my mind says, “One bad picture, now good pictures. You back to even.”

  So, back to even. Better than being in the hole.

  20.

  If I was expecting any new cred from my Anaconda teammates, I soon get over that expectation. I suppose they look at the national junior title as kids’ play, and perhaps it is. So on Friday night, the bags of laundry are back at my door. One good thing—those scratchy shirts we all have to wear dry quickly and seem impossible to wrinkle.

  I’m up late, as usual, doing the laundry and getting frustrated that none of my stateside friends are online. Of course, when it’s evening for me, they’re either still at school or, for the college guys, either in class or sleeping. In a couple of months they’ll be out for summer break and online all day. So I put out a couple text messages, linking them to some of the Korean gaming e-zines that have pictures of me at the junior championships.

  As I sit in front of my laptop, the hum of the washer and dryer in the background, I do a Google image search on some of my old haunts. I actually find a picture of the KenTacoHut in Overland Park where I used to go all the time. That makes me think of old times and old obsessions. So I hit Brit’s Facebook page. She’s featuring a set of snapshots with some guy I don’t recognize and it’s been so long, and feels so far away that it’s like looking at a family scrapbook of pictures taken before you were born.

  Then I look up more Kansas pictures. After the congestion of the Korean streets, the wide open streets of Overland Park make it look like a ghost town. I blow up the few pictures that have people in them, and then stare at them for a while, looking, pathetically I know, for Hannah.

  On Saturday morning Yeong breaks routine after breakfast and leads us all downstairs to a lounge on the first floor where a big screen is set up in front of a couple of rows of tables. In the back of the room are four round tables, covered with white tablecloths. Two guys in suits, both looking to be in their twenties, are sitting at a table in front of the room. They fire up a projector and start a lecture which has a ton of charts and equations. Now charts and equations are good news for me, because I have a fighting chance of following these, even in Korean. Interspersed are screenshots of various Starfare situations.

  All the guys in the room are taking notes on the little pads like the one in front of me. Except me—I’m just fighting to get the drift, which is clearly the application of some mathematically based strategies, which strikes me as very cool, even though I’m missing too much from their lecture to really follow along.

  After a few hours lunch is wheeled in on carts. Large tureens of soup and bowls of kimchi. I’ve figured out which soups are least offensive and get a bowl and sit down at one of the round lunch tables at the back of the room. I’m surprised when the older of the two speakers pulls up a chair next to me.

  “Michael Kim,” he says, in accentless English, extending a hand out Western style. I shake his hand and tell him my name.

  “Of course,” he says. “You’re famous, you know.”

  “Not exactly,” I protest. “And certainly not for anything deserved.”

  “Well,” Kim says. “We could discuss whether or not there is a quantifiable metric that links merit and celebrity. Sort of thing we would bat around all night when I was at MIT.”

  “You were at MIT?”

  “Undergrad and grad school. PhD in economics. All morning, I’m thinking about my freshman lectures at MIT and how lost I felt. How much of what we covered did you follow?”

  “Not much,” I admit. Kim asks about my math background and I tell him about my AP courses and the class at UMKC.

  “Very impressive,” he says, even though I know enough about Korean math prodigies to know that whatever I’ve done is modest. “You are eighteen?”

  “Sixteen,” I correct. He arches his eyebrows and says, “Very impressive. Let me give you the ten minute version in English,” he says. And even in English it’s a bit of a strain, but I pick up that Team Anaconda has hired him and a graduate assistant to apply some cutting edge game theory mathematics to determine what is the best course of action when balancing decisions about how to decide which resources to develop in relation to your opponent’s decisions.

  “It’s actually a very interesting problem,” Kim says. “Very similar to some of the real world policy decisions that game theory addresses regarding nuclear armament, the positioning of offensive forces on national frontiers, that sort of thing. Clearly there are some optimum strategies in Starfare that are not always intuitive.”

  I ask him a bunch of questions that must be totally noobie, but he doesn’t seem to mind trying to answer.

  Then he sort of screws up his face, leans closer and in a softer voice asks, “So you have any family in Korea?”


  I shake my head.

  “Friends?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, do you at least have people to speak English with?”

  I hesitate, thinking of the people at the bar, and then just say, “Coach Yeong.”

  “Yeong?” he says, looking around to find him at the back of the room. He laughs. “I’ve tried English with him.” He gives me a look. Concern? Sympathy?

  “Look,” he says. “You need to get away from this scene a bit. See another side of Korea. Have a chance to relax. Chat in English. We’ll have you over to our place. It’s not that far.”

  I begin to demur, but he interrupts. “No discussion. I’ll talk to Yeong. He’ll see the benefits. Trust me.”

  Then he gets a wave from Yeong to start up the second part of the session and he excuses himself.

  Before he walks away I blurt out one quick question: “What would you recommend, if someone wanted to know about this stuff?”

  As he stands he says, “I’ll send over a couple of books that might do the trick.” Then he smiles and adds, “Don’t worry. They’re in English.”

  21.

  Sunday morning I sleep late and when I log on I curse out loud when I find a series of missed Skype calls from Hannah. An email from Mom congratulating me on my tournament win, news of which has taken days to filter all the way back to her at the Institute. I hold the best for last. After deleting all the junk mail I open a voice message from Hannah.

  “Seth—this is unbelievable, but today I heard from RISD! I got in! And the scholarship is terrific. We’d be paying less than a state school! It’s like you getting the call from the Korean team…call me when you can and I’ll give you details.”

  So Hannah will be off to the East coast. When? In five months? I try to picture her at college. Studying art. I imagine a big studio with easels and dozens of students standing around with brushes, looking at a naked model. Then in my mind the model turns for a different pose and it’s that tall guy from the environmental club. Hannah is now snapping pictures like crazy from just a few feet away, getting him from every angle, smiling and enjoying every moment.

  That night after surfing the net for hours, I just lie on my pads, staring at the ceiling. I’m waiting for Hannah to wake up back in Kansas so I can catch her before school.

  I brush past Hannah when she opens the door. She’s wearing a swimsuit top, ragged cutoffs, and she has her hair tied back, the way she does when she goes running. Her eyes are wide, startled.

  “Won another world title this week,” I say when I’m in the entryway. “So I hired a private jet. Flew right into the downtown Kansas City airport.”

  I gesture towards the door.

  “My limo is outside waiting. I came all this way to say one thing.”

  Hannah’s upper lip is trembling. She’s about to say something.

  I silence her with a wave of my hand. “I love you.”

  Now Hannah is crying. She takes a step towards me, tentatively. Then she’s throwing herself into my arms and I’m holding her so tightly I can feel her breasts flattening against my chest.

  “Oh, Seth,” she says. “I didn’t know how much I missed you. Not until just now.”

  Then she takes me by the hand. And leads us up the stairs. And this time we take a left at the top of the stairs. Towards her room.

  Finally at ten o’clock I go back to the computer and Skype her cell. She picks up on the third ring.

  “Seth? Why are you calling so early?

  “Well, I’m about ready to go to bed.”

  “Omigod, I’m so sorry, I just can’t seem to figure this time change thing out. And I don’t mean to sound so bitchy. I mean, it’s great to hear from you. It’s just so hectic here in the morning. Hang on.”

  In the background I can hear a muffled, “Zeb, don’t you dare go in the bathroom again. I swear I will…” I hear a door slam.

  “What a brat! I swear I’m going to kill that boy…Sorry, so how are you? How’s the job?”

  “It’s OK.”

  “Just OK? This is not sounding like the job of your dreams.”

  “Anyway, the only reason I’m calling is that you left a message about getting into a college last night. So congrats.”

  “Oh it’s amazing, and not just getting in, but the financial aid. You know when you keep telling yourself, don’t get excited. Don’t get your hopes up. There’s nothing wrong with going to your second choice or even one of the safeties. And then, all of a sudden, everything just falls into place?”

  Like going to Korea and staying up to midnight doing team laundry?

  “Anyway, I still have to choose between the offers. But I’ve been telling everyone it’s really a no-brainer for me… Zeb! I need to get in there!” Then to me she says, “Hang on. Here comes Mom.”

  I can hear Hannah, muffled as she covers the cell’s mic, telling her mom to tell Zeb to get out of the bathroom. Then her mom yelling something.

  “Seth, I’m really, really happy to hear from you, but I’m going to have to go. Call me later, OK?”

  Then I go lie down and it’s very, very quiet. I can still hear Hannah’s voice echoing in my ears. I hear her say she’s happy to hear from me. I hear her saying call me. I’m sure I will be able to hear her voice saying these things for a long, long time.

  22.

  On Wednesday I get a note in my mailbox and I get Sung Gi to translate. It takes a few tries, but finally I understand that there’s a package for me at the front desk. Professor Kim has sent me two game theory books and a card: “Will pick you outside the lobby at 5 p.m. on Sunday for dinner. Yeong thinks it’s a capital idea.” That night I begin reading the one that looks easiest and it’s almost 2 a.m. when I finally fall asleep.

  During practice I find myself thinking about some of the ideas in the book instead of concentrating on Starfare and Yeong comes by about a dozen times, clucking his tongue and looking over my shoulder with what I can tell is disgust.

  But somehow my mind is stuck on this tangent. I start thinking about the mathematics of other parts of the game. That maybe there could be a way to quantify some of the strategic decisions. So I grab a pad and a pencil and jot this down: “Assuming your opponent maintains perfect macro during a harass, how many spybots should you attempt to kill in order to end up ahead considering you are seeking an attrition drop rather than fast expansion?”

  I look at this for a minute and I’m pretty sure that I could come up with an algorithm that could provide the answer. And this is just one little piece of the puzzle. What if you could find the equations for all kinds of moves? Wouldn’t it be possible to find the absolute efficiency mathematically, rather than by the kind of trial and error and intuition that I see the Team Anaconda pros using?

  I fold the paper and stuff it in my pocket.

  That night, after our evening practice, I take the note out of my pocket and grab a notebook from my desk. Start working out some of the formulas. When I look up it’s after midnight. Two hours just gone. I’ve got about ten sheets of notes and I’ve simplified it all down to about three lines of calculus.

  I fall asleep instantly. In the morning I tear out the page with the final calculations and take them to breakfast. Get a bowl of rice and sit down at a table with three of the guys. Take the calculations out of my pocket and unfold them. The guys each take a look, shake their heads and pass it along. The last guy, Tae-Uk, stares at the paper for a minute and then yells something out.

  Sang-Chul comes over. Grabs the paper out of Tae-Uk’s hands and stands there for minute. Then barks out something in Korean. The three guys at the table point at me.

  Sang Hoon looks at me, with what I take to be skepticism. He starts babbling at me in Korean. The other guys start talking at the same time. Sang Hoon shakes his head and laughs
, crumples the paper and throws it on the table. Walks away. The guys at the table look at me sheepishly as I unwad the paper, fold it up and put it back in my pocket.

  I should have figured that these guys were too busy playing Starfare to keep up with their math. Screw them. It just makes me more determined to come up with something on my own.

  That night I attack another problem. I know that the guys on the team have figured out what they consider to be the optimum ratio between mineral production and spybot development. But when I think about it, I realize that it’s a pretty crude approximation. I think it could be solved exactly using some basic calc. So I work on that for the next couple of nights.

  Sunday I sleep in, chat with Mom, then get on the computer and waste the afternoon. I catch DT and tell him about the math stuff. He seems optimistic about it. But when I send him the actual formulas he claims it’s beyond him. I forget he hasn’t started calc yet.

  So a little before five I’m in the lobby, waiting for Professor Kim. Watching all the weird little cars zip by. Wondering why half the people in Korea seem to have the same last name.

  A few minutes after five a small blue sedan pulls up in front of the building. I start for the door as the driver leans across and rolls down the window. Kim is waving at me as I step through the apartment building’s door. The air is still crisp but over the last few weeks it seems the worst of winter is fading.

  Kim pops the door and I slide in. I look at the car—think it’s a Hyundai. Either that or a Kia—guess one of these two and you’d be right about seventy-five percent of the time.

  He reaches out and I shake his hand.

  “Good to see you, Seth,” he says. And my heart actually leaps at the sound of good English.