Pokerface - 9. Rags

When Seth went to sleep, he was drunk, miserable and lonely. When he woke, none of that was relevant. Chip and Glenn didn't exist. They were part of the seven hundred and twenty-eight obstacles. Seth only needed to outlast twenty-four of them personally. He could put his faith in Natalie, the Ryder twins and other Poker giants to exterminate the others. Still, though he remained proud of his stance that Poker wasn't personal, he hoped to run into a few specific people before the tournament came to an end. What he wouldn't do to see the smug grins wiped from the faces of Chip, Lester and especially Donny, or to smirk back at the furious scowl on Madame Fleur de Glace's lips.

He did not seek others to dine with this morning. With circumstantial exceptions, he did not eat with his competition - if that was even the appropriate word. Victims sounded better. Instead, Seth ordered toast with scrambled eggs, a kransky sausage and two rashers of bacon, and some sugary tea in a pot to wash it down. He frowned in amused irritation when he saw that the eggs arrived already spread thinly on his toast yet the butter remained in two sachets by the side. Idiots.

He showered, moisturised, brushed and flossed his teeth and combed the knots from his hair until it was like a long, black curtain over his shoulders. He tugged on a brilliant white suit embroidered with red roses, one he bought with the winning pot from a tournament in Reno back in '99. It wasn't a lucky suit - Seth was hardly superstitious - but he often wore it when he played cards. It reminded him every time he took a sip from his beverage and saw the red rose on his wrist that he was a winner.

The dealers began at ten sharp. Those participating in today's draft would register by nine and find their seat by nine-forty five. Half of the players would compete today, three hundred and sixty split up into forty tables of nine. Seth was one of them, going by the schedule he kept safe underneath the photograph he, Clara and their parents took together for Christmas of '91. Table eight in the casino on the third deck. He didn't know who he would play against. On one hand, he hoped it would be eight strangers he could wipe out in a couple of hours. On the other, it would be nice to dominate Chip. Whatever his real name was. Probably Kyle. He seemed like a total Kyle.

When first he sat down at table eight, Seth laughed out loud. With a head like a straw broom, Lester looked back at him from seven o'clock, and all of the privileged white boy arrogance left those eyes.

"Well, that's just great!" Lester complained out loud, tapping his manicured nails on the top of his designer shades perched on his fuzzy head and letting them fall to his nose. "What are the odds you'd be at my table?"

"You don't know the odds? You're playing professional Hold'Em, and you can't calculate the odds of us meeting at your table?" Seth's giggles turned heads. "Oh, this is a treat."

"Ahh, it doesn't matter," Lester grinned. "Chippy will run roughshod over you and everyone else. He's the best player I've ever seen."

"Then you obviously don't get out very often," Seth snorted, only mildly aware that the other four scrubs sitting at the table were watching their exchange.

Lester leaned back. "Hey man, you and I both know I'm just here to have a bit of fun. You don't have to be a prick. I know I'm doomed here. Who cares? Lighten up a bit, boomer. Chippy apparently didn't teach you anything."

Seth's blood ran cold, and from the way the cocky young man's lip curled, Lester was aware that he struck a nerve. What did that little bastard Chip tell his friends? He felt his knuckles tightening into fists, but when he noticed, he forced himself to calm down. How many people had tried to get into his head? A hundred? A thousand? It didn't matter. None of them ever succeeded... yet Lester was a different kettle of fish, he supposed. He didn't intend to win, but he was doing his best to psyche his opponent out anyway. Was he just a pawn? To soften the multi-time champion for his friends to deliver the coup de grace? But then Seth remembered something - Donny and Chip would never make it to the finals. Not with card sharks like the Ryder Twins, Fleur de Blanc, Natalie Payne and Lars van der Berg aboard the ship. He knew he could rely on his fellow champions to clean up the rabble.

"Seth Nakamura!" A middle-aged woman sat down next to him, startling him somewhat, and learned obnoxiously close. She smelled of sickly sweet perfume, but her breath reeked as though she ate her meals from an ashtray. "No way, I didn't believe I'd ever get a chance to play against someone like you!"

"Oh, a card shark, is he?" Mohawk, the man next to Lester, pretended he didn't recognise the Poker celebrity.

"You don't know who Seth Nakamura is?" Ashtray, for all her aromatic faults, at least asked the question Seth wished to hear the answer to. "Oh, he's won a lot of tournaments! You and I probably don't stand much chance, you know! Not with him at our table."

"Don't count on it," Mohawk mumbled, doing his best to appear confident, but Seth could see the fidgeting of his tattooed hands - a sign that he was worried.

The final person to sit down at the table was a middle-aged gentleman in a tuxedo who seemed to be living out a James Bond fantasy, with a modern watch and an apparent need to fiddle relentlessly with his tie. He recognised none of these people, aside from Lester. At table three, Seth spotted pretty Glenn McIntosh, sitting at the table with another eight strangers. As far as he knew, Glenn wasn't much good at cards, but Seth knew not to underestimate him. To call the gold-digger amoral would be overkill, but he was manipulative, resourceful and more intelligent than he liked to appear to the untrained eye. On table eleven, Seth could see Lydia Ryder, and the eight people she was about to slaughter. He shot her a mutual look of respect and well wishes.

Every player received a thousand dollars worth of chips and their cards. Seth drew a three of spades and a Jack of diamonds - a rubbish hand. There was always a chance his cards could become valuable on the flop, but he wanted to understand his opponents before he moved to second gear. How much they were willing to gamble, how much stock they put in their hand, and how aggressive or defensively they liked to play. Lester, Seth noticed, was trying far too hard to conceal emotion behind his shades. He was very aware that he lacked a pokerface, it seemed.

Seth rolled his eyes and shook his head in disgust when not one, not two, but three of his competitors went all-in on the very first hand. Lester, to his credit, did not stake his place in the entire competition on the very first pair of cards dealt to him, but Mohawk put it all on the line for a pair of Queens. Worse, Ashtray and an overweight man with mutton chops threw their thousands upon thousands of dollars in sign-up fees away on an Ace and eight and a suited ten and Jack, respectively. Idiots! They had no respect for the game, and when Ashtray won with a pair of aces, Seth did not even dignify them with recognition. It wasn't a tournament of only the most potent poker players in the world. Any rich asshole could pay to board and compete.

As Seth sipped from his juice, he logged that hand in his mental database. So, Ashtray is confident enough in an Ace with a rag to go all in. I'll remember that.

Lester folded the first nine hands of the game before even making the blinds. Seth was intrigued by this. He was sure the kid would be willing to gamble, but then he remembered that this was Lester, and not Chip or Donny. Of the three, Lester certainly had the least amount of personality. Ashtray, next to Seth, did her very best to bully the table after winning a staggering lead from her pair of aces in the first hand. She bet aggressively and often, raking in a pittance at a time. When at last Seth had a strong hand and tripled her bet, Ashtray forced him to go all-in if he wanted to contest the pot. Seth sneered at her, seeing the fragility in the way she projected her overconfidence, but when he laid down his flush, a highly ranked hand of five same suited cards, Ashtray conceded and did not reveal her cards. A tightening in her jaw indicated that she was adequately tilted after that mistake. Good.

Bowler Hat was eliminated next, then Acne Scars and Toupée, all to the same player, the middle-aged lady who stanned Versace, wearing shades and carrying a purse with the label. When twelve o'clock ticked over, it was time for a lunch break. Four of them remained, now. Seth, of course, playing conservatively aside from a few decent hands. Lester, who had won a few mediocre hands and was struggling to keep up with the blinds. Ashtray, whose confidence disappeared the second she lost her lead and faced elimination if she didn't act soon. Versace, a savvy woman that Seth had taken a liking to when she knocked out three competitors in a row and gained the lion's share of the chips. Though Lester and Ashtray were on their way out, Seth was interested in seeing how well Versace could measure up to him, head to head. She was becoming a threat; just what he needed to spice up the first round.

"How's your game going?" Lydia Ryder asked him as he sat next to her at the casino bar. She drank lemon water, preferring to remain sober while she played.

"Small fish in a big pond - one of them is a bigger fish, but I wouldn't call her a shark," Seth brushed his hair with his fingers as he beckoned to the bartender. "There are only four of us left."

"Oh, good job. How many did you knock out?"

Seth raised an eyebrow. "None, actually. The cards haven't been on my side, but these scrubs couldn't find a bluff with a map. How's yours going? Oh," he turned to the bartender, who took her sweet time to make it down to him. "I'll have a salad slider and a glass of lemon, lime and bitters. Thank you."

"We still have six at my table. The guy on my left doesn't know what deodorant does, apparently. I'm desperate to knock him out as fast as I can!" Lydia led the two in a hearty chuckle. "And bugger me, there's an older woman who sounds like she's smoked eleven packs a day since she was born, and she talks and talks with this horrible voice that sounds like... you know when the telly doesn't have good reception?"

"Are you talking about Nat?" Seth grinned, and the two laughed again.

"I'll tell her you said that," Lydia winked at him. "No, I have a good table. It's a solid game with some decent players."

"Yes. You're all heart and sportsmanship," he teased.

"Shut up! I have a good thing going," she whispered with a grin.

"Mr Nakamura, right?" The bartender caught his attention, and he looked at her, giving a slight nod. He looked at the bottle of Heinekin beer in her hand and grimaced. "Someone from the other side bought this for you. Quite a cutie, I think. He also wanted me to give you this. I always liked origami. My sister had origami napkins at her wedding."

The bartender placed the beer on a coaster and the pretty origami swan, folded crudely from what seemed to be a sheet of notebook paper from one of the rooms, next to it. A swan. How predictable. How cliché. If Chip wanted to impress him, he'd have to try a lot harder than this.

"Send it back," Seth ordered. That immature rube blew his chance last night with the way he behaved. "I'm not interested."

"What?" Lydia screwed up her face. "Aren't you curious about who sent it to you?"

"Not even a little bit. I know who it's from," Seth blew her off coldly, sipping from his glass. "Send it back and tell him to grow up."

"Whatever. It makes no difference to me," the bartender seemed a little let down, but it was none of her business.

"No! Bugger that! I want to see for myself. You've been getting secret notes and whatnot since we went to dinner and I'm a nosy cow," Lydia pulled at one of the glittering red roses embroidered on his superb white jacket. "Can I keep the swan if you don't want it?"

Seth shrugged. "Be my guest, if such poor craftsmanship entices you."

"Don't be mean! I like it. I wish Josh would surprise me with cute stuff like this," she rotated it in her hands with a small smile on her lips.

"Bring me some paper tonight. I'll show you how to do it properly," Seth offered, feeling a little bad for being such a snob. "Since we'll make you some real origami, you don't need this one."

He slipped the origami swan into his jacket as Lydia watched, amused and thoroughly unconvinced.