pet Rover on the head, and headed for the elevator.
The poker game progressed the way they do. Otis was up, and Bryan lost everything early. Having been to many poker nights at Michigan State, I knew to start slowly, only winning a hand here and there to get a feel of each of their tells.
Bryan was obvious with his tell. I imagined all the people sitting around the table knew that when he had nothing in his hand, he would hum a tune that sounded familiar, but I couldn’t name.
Otis was sneaky with his game, and it took me a couple of losses to figure out his signals. When he had a good hand, he would stack the chips in front of him. On hands that were garbage, he would unstack his chips. The dual actions took me longer to figure out than it should have. The most difficult part became not looking directly in his direction to see if he was touching the chips.
The player that was hardest to read was Anderson. The smirk on his face made me wonder if he knew I was analyzing everyone’s playing. It wasn’t until halfway into the night that I caught Anderson’s tell. Whenever he was holding a good hand, he would look at the chip stacks in front of the players around the table. I had him, and now I was ready to take all their money.
In the last hand of the game, I was neck and neck with Anderson and Otis. A couple of pairs with jacks high meant I just needed to mentally sit back and wait. I had been schooled on my tells at MSU by one of the world’s best poker players, so I was aware of my movements when the cards had been dealt. Otis asked how many cards I wanted.
“One.”
“The lady only needs one card. Interesting.”
“Thanks for the play-by-play. Deal the cards.” Bryan sat back in his chair, nursing a beer.
“I’ll take three.” Anderson tossed his three discards on the table and slid the new ones closer to him.
“Dealer needs no cards. And, since this is the last hand of the night, let’s make it interesting.”
After a second, the sound of Otis playing with his chips sent a thrill down my back. My focus was on Anderson and what he would look at when he picked up his new cards. His eyes remained on his cards. Anderson had nothing, and Otis wasn’t stacking. I shoved all my chips into the pot and waited.
“You’re all in?” Bryan looked over at Otis and Anderson.
Anderson pushed all his chips into the pot without saying a word.
“Looks like we’ve made it interesting.” I smirked. “You in?”
There was a long pause, but then Otis slid his chips into the pile. The look on his face told me he was worried. I wasn’t going to back down. You got them.
Bryan shouted, “Show us what you got, people.”
Slowly, Anderson turned over a pair of tens and a pair of nines. Otis flipped his cards onto the pile of chips, revealing a straight. He sat back and waited for me to reveal my hand.
Bryan stood up, startling Rover, who had retreated to his bed in the corner of the room, to get a better look at my hand. “You pulled one card, and you ended up with a full house?”
Otis swallowed the last of his beer as he and Bryan watched me stack my winning. “Dude, you brought in a wringer to clean us out?”
“Yeah. And, to enjoy it even more, I allowed the wringer to clean me out too. Nice try. Pay the woman.”
Reaching into the bag resting on the back of his chair, Otis checked my stacks of chips one last time, then placed a stack of cash in front of me. “There you go. Forty-five thousand.”
“Thousand–” I tried to speak, but I couldn’t push any words out. “I thought the ante was five dollars. How the hell?”
“Forty-thousand. The buy-in for the game is ten.” Anderson informed me matter-of-factly.
“Ten-thousand dollars?” I stood up so fast the chair flew back and tipped over. “Why? Why would you let me play without telling me? I don’t have ten-thousand dollars. Anderson, I don’t have five-thousand dollars.”
I started feeling light-headed and grabbed the table for balance. The guys started laughing at my outrage, and Rover came over to see if I was alright.
“You said to cover you.” Anderson replied with his signature sexy smirk.
“I meant deal me in for like fifty bucks.” Bryan righted the