Poker

"Hey, hey hey! I understand moving the pot a bit so you can fling the cards better but don't push it that way, it's just farther for me to reach when I win!"

Laughter all around.

It was five card draw, deuces wild and I had a queen and some trash in my hand. Since smack talking is a time honored tradition of poker night, I was only doing my part.

"Four cards."

"Nobody wins when they take four cards, so quit whining about having to reach for the pot." S, one of the younger of the group, (not counting myself of course, I'm the baby of poker night, and many nights, the only girl) said, tossing three cards into the center of the table and stretching a long arm out to gather in the new ones.

"Yeah, but I ain't nobody," I said cheerfully as I saw the four cards I'd drawn.

I have been known to bluff a time or two at poker, and I haven't been going long enough for them to figure out my tells. I'm sure I have them, but with the amount of alcohol and snark at that table, they often times miss tells that are obvious to me.

I carefully arranged my hand, peered at it, moved a card, peered at it again, sighed, and set the hand in front of me.

"Ha, you got nothin."

With nine people at the table (we only have the one, set up in the front room of a mechanic's shop in the next tiny town over,) even nickle and dime bets add up to a nice chunk of change by the time it's all said and done.

"I got a straight!" S crows, laying out a six, seven, eight, deuce, ten.

Remember, deuces are wild.

"I got queen high," I say calmly, pulling my cards one by one from my hand and laying them out on the table.

"You stayed in with queen high, that's all you got??" S stares at me as if he's re evaluating how smart I am. He's on the other end of the table, which is fairly large, so he can't see my cards all that clear. I simply look at J to my left who is staring at my cards.

"No you have a pair of deuces which doesn't beat a....... oh, shit, dude, she's got queen high straight!"

Eight, nine, deuce, deuce, queen.

"I told you not to push the pot that way."

"But you threw away four cards, how in the crap..."

"I'm just that damn good, now shove that money over here, will ya?"

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Thursday nights lately have been devoted to poker. I got invited to a five dollar buy in game, went to see what all the fuss was about, and have been every week but one since.

The first week I went, I came home six dollars up. Since then, I've regularly lost my five dollars, which I consider a more than fair price for the amount of entertainment I get. Five dollars won't get you into a movie, and I have way more fun at poker night than I do watching a movie.

Last night, lady luck was with me, and I came home sixteen dollars richer than when I'd left.

At the end of the night, when S walked up to the window of the car, I smiled cheerily at him and thanked him for giving me his money.

"Damn women."

"Ha! Watch it buster or next week I'll show up in a halter top and skin tight jeans and take all of you for everything you have on you. And maybe free labor, too."

"That... would probably work, actually," he chuckled. "Hey, you know that whatever trash talk gets thrown around at the poker table, we're all glad you started coming. You say the damndest things, and keep everyone laughing."

"Oh, I know," I replied, "I wouldn't get half as much crap if I wasn't welcome. See you next week, S."