Manny Angeles always kept his cards close to his chest — and his numbers, as Rey Bancod revealed in his eulogy after Friday morning’s Holy Mass, even closer.

Just two weeks ago, he had me fooled. Holding court at the far right end of the long table — his not-so-quiet corner of the newsroom where he’d rattle off jokes or croon one of his favorite “what if” songs — Manny claimed he’d become a sportswriter just a year ahead of me, in 1988.

He said it loud enough for central desk whip Larry Payawal to hear, but just outside Rey’s range — convenient, since Rey could’ve called the bluff. I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? With a face honed at the poker table, Manny could lie like a pro — and usually did, if only for laughs.

Yes, Manny got all our numbers. He feinted all of us.

The previous Friday — when his silence began stretching into the weekend — the news started to filter in. And it was no Mark Twain-ish exaggeration: he had chucked everything across the table. He had gone all-in and, in the darkest and truest shade of the phrase’s many meanings, gone all-out.

“The guy must be only 59,” I muttered — too young to be making such a hasty exit that we editors had to scramble to close his pages and write his editorials.

I didn’t mind.

I took it as another of his “veteran moves” — like when he would momentarily step out of a world spinning too fast for everyone’s comfort. But this time, he didn’t just step out for his mid-work breather or a walk around the block. He had left the building.

Rey, confessing to the cardinal sin of peeking at Manny’s passport, recalled how surprised (and happy?) he was to find out he was seven years younger than our Nation editor. For that, Manny gave him the silent treatment during their European motoring adventure years ago.

And to think I thought only women guarded their birthdays that fiercely.

Still, the final reveal came during Manny’s inurnment. Gabby Alvarado — like Rey, Manny and this Contrarian, all card-carrying members of the sportswriting fraternity — disclosed what this fanboy failed to piece together. Manny, in fact, predated all of us. He wasn’t just ahead of me by a year; he was leagues ahead.

One of the early prodigies mentored by the venerable late Tony Siddayao at the now-defunct Daily Express, Manny was already honing what Business Associate Editor Teddy Montelibano would describe as his “unmatched pen” during the reign of President Marcos Jr.’s father and namesake.

Turns out the kid at the table had been the old soul in the room all along.

We, at DAILY TRIBUNe, laughed at that, as we always did when Manny’s name came up in newsroom banter. He could vanish for a bit mid-shift, then return with a half-smile, a fresh wisecrack, or another bittersweet melody drifting from his lips. His jokes didn’t always land — but his edits always did.

I don’t know what hand he was dealt in the end, but I like to think Manny went out the way he played — with his cards close, his smile tighter and that eternal poker face hiding just enough to make us believe he was fine. That he had one more story in him.

He did. It was for us, the people he left behind, to write.