Julian had been a master of the poker for a long while, infact longer than anyone alive could remember. The poker had been his life for about 3 decades, and he prided himself on the fact that he could beat anyone at it as easy as a fox could beat a tortoise in a race, which was infact true.
He fame reverberated from place to place. Recently he had been honored with the title of the grandmaster of the poker, after beating 170 other great players from different countries, grandmasters themselves infact, and the tabloids were wild with the news of his truimph.
Julian was respected and admired for years before he became loud-mouthed and boastful, thus reducing his number of loyal fans and getting him a lot of haters in the process
A clip of him calling the last grandmaster he beat 'a sneaky sucker' because of a costly mistake that cost him the game, was circulating the internet, and people were not slow to express their distaste at such nauseating manifestation of ego.
His best friend, Hector, an internationally famous hip-hop artist rang him the moment he saw the clip and tried talking him out of the terribly egoistic attitude he had recently developed.
"It doesn't matter," Julian told him, hardly giving him chance to say anything at all. "I can handle the pressure, and it doesn't reduce who I am by the littlest bit."
"Okay just try to be more careful," Hector counselled vainly, not knowing anything else to say. "I will see you next tommorow, maybe it's better we discuss face to face."
This bit of information was not well received by Julian, and he muttered an 'Okay' that betrayed annoyance, and banged the phone with apparent disgust.
Hector's efforts at trying to get Julian to change his bad attitude yielded no results and he just gave up on the matter altogether.
Julian reached a new height of fame three years after his latest laurel of greatness, and this is how it happened. A group of scientists who had, as some internet users said, grown tired of his loudmouthed ego decided to dethrone him by pitting him against a supercomputer in a poker game
The internet was awash with excitement about who would come out the winner in the contest. Some went with Julian, others said the supercomputer would level him with little effort and in no time.
The contest finally happened, and what a heart-racing game it was. 25 straight bouts produced no winner. Despite being rescheduled several times no winner emerged. At their 6th meeting, Julian mannaged to bring the super computer to a humbling defeat, and with that his fame doubled, and also his ego.
He now threw out challenges to anyone who could best him in a poker game, sometimes staking millions of dollars for each contest, all of which he won.
Julian had first come to the notice of the public as a loved and revered hero, but his ego and boastfulness had made him a lot of haters, and the general plot was to dethrone as the unchallengable poker game champion he was.
Julian's fall finally came at the hands of a 17-year old poker player, and it didn't take up to 6 bouts for the teenager to bring the long-revered champion to disgrace.
As Liam had said after his shocking victory over Julian, he had taken Julian's challenge quite personally and had devoted himself to years and years of rigorous practice so as to bring him down.
The general public, all who had known the former champion, and witnessed his awe-inspiring victories, and also afterwards endured his boastfulness, seemed to heave, as it were, a sigh of great relief. The media comments of celebrities about how his extraordinary career was not touched one bit by his fall, were all half-hearted and insincere. Inwardly most people were happy for his disgrace, seeing it as a just retribution for what they considered an unpardonable transgression, that is, the overbloated ego and haughtiness of the former champion.
Liam would continue in Julian's place as the best poker game player until his death some 45 years later.
