–The sneaks!
–Looks like the mechanics are about to win.
The old gentleman folded, and the Doctor folded too.
The cowboy raised and raised again, through gritted teeth that ground together so noisily that Balot thought they might crumble to bits. She almost felt sorry for him, the sitting duck that the mechanics were preparing to pluck and roast.
The betting was finally over, and the cowboy revealed his hand with vigor. Three jacks. Just as Oeufcoque had predicted.
The cowboy’s manner seemed to suggest that it was a close call but he felt he had a good chance of victory.
But that was what good cheating was all about—making the mark feel he has a chance when in reality he has none.
The suit revealed his hand. The cowboy recoiled.
Three aces. It was just like the previous hand, except the shoe was now on the other foot.
Balot watched the chips flow over to the suit, and at last she realized what was happening. You needed bait to catch a sucker, and what better bait than another sucker? They let the cowboy win at first, then just as he started getting into the mood they would take it all back from him and then some, all the while keeping alive the flame of false hope that he might still have a chance.
The suit won the next hand too. After that the old gentleman won, then the cowboy, then back to the suit.
As far as Balot and the Doctor were concerned, money was only flowing one way. They gave a convincing impression of a pair who were delighted just to be there and happy to pay for the privilege of being allowed to participate.
The mechanics weren’t slow to recognize this. In other words, they made sure that Balot and the Doctor had good cards, or at least good enough to dangle a glimmer of false hope before them before pulling it away at the last minute—until the next hand.
The second round of betting had just begun when Oeufcoque suddenly asked Balot a question.
–Do you think you could snarc one of the overhead cameras?
–Probably, yes.
–Try shifting the camera that’s watching over your hand.
Balot did so. She sensed the security cameras on the ceiling without so much as a glance in their direction.
There were three cameras pointed at the table. Not that they were particularly paying attention to it at the present time—they were simply three of the many that scanned the room, and they happened to monitor Balot’s table.
Balot snarced the three cameras ever so slightly, causing them to shift just a few millimeters. The security systems on the cameras themselves were fairly easy to crack—after all, it wasn’t as though the customers were likely to climb up to the ceiling and adjust them individually. Balot did adjust them, so that there was now a small blind spot that happened to be just about where she was sitting.
Balot’s cards at the time were K
and 8
.
The flop was 10
, 6
and J
.
–See if you can tune into everyone’s breathing patterns.
Balot obeyed, honing in on the breathing rhythms of everyone at the table, including the dealer. They breathed in, then out. In again, then out again.
There wasn’t a single one of them who could survive without breathing, after all.
The cowboy’s breathing was the roughest. His breaths were centered around the area from his chest to his shoulders. The old gentleman’s exhalations came from below his belly. The dealer, the other mechanics, and the Doctor all breathed from the area between their chest and their belly.
Their breathing changed as the game progressed, and in particular all of them began breathing heavily when it came time to call.
–Aim to call your hand at the precise moment everyone has fully exhaled.
Balot followed Oeufcoque’s orders obediently, and she fell into a new pattern of play, almost without meaning to.
–Try and relax, go with the flow.
The moment Oeufcoque said this, Balot’s right hand moved suddenly, of its own accord. This was the instant that everyone at the table had just finished exhaling. Balot found that she had exchanged one of her cards with one of the Doctor’s cards that he had just laid down on the table after folding in the first round.
–You see, the instant between exhaling and starting a new breath is the moment a person’s guard is at its lowest.
Balot’s cards were now K
and Q
. Nobody had noticed.
–Looks like clubs really are your lucky suit.
Oeufcoque’s words were simultaneously an observation and a prediction.
The third round of betting began. The Doctor and the potbelly had both already folded, so it was now a four-horse race. The turn card was J
. This made a pair with the jack in the flop, so anyone who had three of a kind on another number would automatically end up with a near-unbeatable full house. The hand now came down to a battle of wits as each attempted to guess whether the other players were nearly there, already there, or just bluffing.
The old gentleman raised, and the suit called. The cowboy called and raised again.
–Raise to the limit.
Balot entered her money to call, then raised a further $120. The calls went round the table, the cowboy raising and Balot re-raising. By the end, the pot contained over two thousand dollars.
The calls finished, and with them the third round of betting.
Balot couldn’t stop her chest from throbbing.
The dealer put his hand to the card shoe.
The fact that his eyes glanced at the hand signals of the man on the far left didn’t escape Balot.
The river card was flipped over.
A
.
Incredible—and for a moment, Balot really couldn’t believe it.
–That’s what I thought—I figured our chances were about one in four for this one, Oeufcoque whispered to Balot as she continued to raise the stakes throughout the round.
–It’s a peculiarly human characteristic to be biased toward a certain suit or number, to give off a particular smell whenever confronted with it. The man on the far right gives off relief whenever a spade is dealt, for example. The others, too, give off distinctive odors whenever they see a certain suit. It seems that clubs aren’t very popular at this table.
–Is that why so many are coming to me? I’m getting everyone’s leftovers?
–I suppose you could call it the inevitable surplus, yes. But, you know, this is what many people would call luck, or destiny.
Oeufcoque was as wishy-washy as ever.
The old gentleman folded. Just the suit and the cowboy left to beat.
They both raised to the end, as did Balot.
The cowboy was the first to show his hand.
6
and J
. Full house. The gloating grin that covered his entire face contrasted sharply with the curt smile of the suit.
The suit then opened his hands to reveal his hand: A
and A
. A full house, aces over jacks. Virtually unbeatable. To do so would require a now-impossible full house of aces over kings or queens, an incredibly rare four of a kind, or an even rarer straight flush or a royal straight flush. And four of a kind was also impossible at this point in the hand, the cowboy having played the third jack. All that was left was the infinitesimally small chance of a straight flush or a royal straight flush.