Love is a Gamble

On a warm summer's evening on a train bound for nowhere, I met up with the gambler. We were both too tired to sleep so we took turns a staring out the window at the darkness until boreddom overtook us and began to speak.
He said "Son, I've made my life out of reading people's faces and knowing what their cards were by the way they held their eyes. So if you don't mind my saying, I can see you're out of aces. For a taste of whisky I'll give you some advice"
So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow. Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light, and the night got deathly quiet, and his face lost all expression.

Said "If you're gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right; you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money when you're sitting at the table. There'll be time enough for counting when dealing's done. Now, every gambler knows that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep. 'Cause every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser, and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep."

So when he finished speaking he turned back towards the window, crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep. And somewhere in the darkness the gambler de broke even.
But in his final words I found an ace that I could keep...