Page 25 of Champion of Cards

His stare immediately hardened, like he wanted to put a blade to my throat and cut me wide open.

“Drake is eliminated.” The dealer pushed all the chips to me.

Drake remained at the table, clearly overwhelmed by the loss. He didn’t know what to do except stare at me.

The dealer took the cards and began to shuffle them.

One of the guards came over to escort him out.

Drake jumped to his feet and pulled out his dagger. It all happened within the blink of an eye. He threw it at me where I sat just seven feet away.

But I still had the reflexes of a powerful snake, so I caught the blade in midair, my palm immediately bleeding from the cut of the blade. I had to squeeze it to steady it before it impaled me right in the face.

A collective gasp moved through the audience.

I got to my feet, flipped the dagger in the air to grab it by the hilt, and then threw it at the wall where the plaques of previous winners were hung. I hit the most recent one with his name on it, the tip hitting it right in the center.

Wordlessly, I sat back down and watched the guards eject him from the tournament.

The woman stared at me, and now she wore an expression she hadn’t shown through the entire match, and I knew it wasn’t a bluff or a tell. It was just her.

“Sore loser…”

The dealer started to hand out the cards.

I wiped my palm on my trousers to get rid of the excess blood then pulled the cards close to look at them. Now that she was directly across from me, there was no chance she could see my cards, so I was free to hold them comfortably.

Her gaze hardened, and she focused on the game once again.

We drew a couple cards and admired our hands, thinking of our game plan.

I had substantially more chips than she did, so all I had to do was wait for a good hand and bait her into raising her bet until I cleaned her out. Her approach would probably be to win whatever hands she could and slowly build up her inventory, but that was a risky move because that would give me more opportunities to learn her tells and her strategy.

You’re so close, Fang…

I’ve got thisss. I tossed my chips into the center.

She immediately folded.

The dealer reshuffled the cards and started over, passing out new hands. We pulled new cards and started the dance from the beginning.

I threw my chips in the center—and she folded again.

My eyes narrowed on her face, unsure what her strategy was. To wait and see when I stopped putting chips in the center? Then she would assume I had a bad hand? So I continued to put chips in the center just as she continued to fold. That way, we would never learn anything from each other.

After a couple rounds and frustrated sighs from the audience, she finally met my bet. The game was completely different with just two players. Her only objective was to beat my hand. She couldn’t bluff her way to the end, not when she was low on chips. I could afford to lose a hand, but she couldn’t afford to lose anything.

So I assumed she had a good hand if she was going to use her chips.

I was afraid to raise the bet because she might just fold anyway.

We put down our cards—and she won the match. She took the small pile of chips in the center. But it was a little victory because my chips overwhelmed hers by a landslide. And it was a fatal move on her part, because now I knew she would only come to the table if she had a winning hand and she would never bet all of her chips. Her tactic was to be conservative, and my tactic was to dominate her as quickly as possible.

I tossed my chips into the center as I did for every match.

Without hesitation, she met me.

I raised the bet.

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