“Oh, um, I can’t—I’m not playing.” I instantly hated the way I sounded so small and finite. I wanted to take the words away and make them sound like they belonged to someone who was older and more sophisticated. But whoever gets what they really want?
“Why not, Addie?” Polo’s concern was so over ambitious that it would have been comical if it hadn’t been so sweet. You would have thought I’d just told him I was dying.
I was embarrassed to admit I didn’t even know the basics.
“I just, uh–I don’t know how.”
Reid looked like he had fallen just out of the scope of irritation while Polo’s face suggested the notion was impossible. I could feel the light-heartedness of my good mood starting to slip away just a notch. I shrugged and looked for a way out.
“That’s fine.” Ben looked at Charlie with a bemused expression. “It’s even better, actually. Usually everyone comes in with their own falsified rules and regulations, now you’ll learn how to play properly.” He nodded to Yuri, who continued dealing to include me.
“First things first,” Charlie whispered in my ear. “You gotta know the hands. A flush beats a straight every time. A royal flush is a straight flush with an ace as the highest of the five cards, like…” To show me an example he stole up the remaining cards and laid out an ace of spades, a king, a queen, jack, and a ten. Reid swore, but Ben just gave him a warning glare and Yuri reshuffled the deck.
Charlie continued, “A straight flush is all the same numbers in the same suit. If two happen in the same hand, the highest card wins it. Four of a kind is the third best hand, which is just the same number from every suit. The highest four is four aces, then four kings right on down to four twos.”
“A full-house is three of a kind and two of a kind!” said Polo, eager to get his end in. “If there’s two during a game, then the biggest of the three wins it!”
Now it was Ben’s turn to break in. “A flush is just five cards of the same suit. In the event that two flushes occur during one hand, the highest card wins.”
“What if those cards are the same?”
He smiled. “It keeps going right on down to the very last card. If both hands are the very same, they split the pot.”
“With a straight, you only have five cards of any suit in order.” Ben continued “Similar with other hands, when there are two straights, the highest card wins. Aces can be used as a high card above a king or a low card below a two to make a straight.”
“Three of a kind is three of the same,” said Charlie.
Reid slammed a pack of cigarettes on the table. “They’re called sets!”
“No, they’re not. Just call them three of a kind like everybody else,” Yuri retorted.
Charlie smiled at me. “Two pairs is four cards of two ranks like two jacks, one spade and diamond, with two sixes, one heart one spade. One pair is the same thing.”
“And the highest pair wins?”
Ben pointed his cigar at me. “Precisely.”
I picked up my hand and kept my cards close. “What happens if no one even has a pair?”
“That’s called high card! Then the hand with the highest card is the winner!”
“Okay, thanks, Polo.” I stifled back my laughter as best as I could but found it difficult. From the corner of my eye I could see Charlie was making no effort to keep his eyes from me.
I was told it was a friendly game, although I got the sense that things could get competitive, particularly when Reid and Charlie started fighting over the odd number of green chips.
The ante up was the easiest part. Charlie took one of the white chips from my pile and tossed it in the center. I smiled gratefully. Then, since Reid was at Yuri’s left, he went first, putting a red chip in the center of the table. I endeavored to read his expression but saw little there beyond his own impatience. Polo threw in one red chip of his own. “I call! I feel like my luck is turning around now, you guys!”
“She’s lucky.” Under the table, Charlie’s foot kicked mine.
Reid scoffed, “Bad luck, maybe.”
I ignored him and threw in one black chip. “I raise.”
Ben smiled and Charlie tried to peek at my cards, but I held them close.