Why I Love My Job Ch. 02

"What's the betting structure, sir?"

She knew enough to ask up front. I smiled. We played house rules on betting – ante is 10, initial bet is limited to 20 to 100, raises must be at least 50 and the total bet to anyone couldn't go over 1000. It wasn't standard for Holdem, but we liked the fact that everyone could start signaling after seeing just two cards. Sometimes you got a pair, or two high cards of a suit and a good feeling, and the initial bets and bluffs could be interesting.

When the showdown was between two people who were well up – and sometimes Greg and I were in that situation – we'd relax the limit to 5000. Greg once nailed me with a queen kicker for 5000.

But given she was poor and didn't have the resources to the other kind of bets we made, we were going to have to scale that back a little.

"Given that you're new here... let's limit the betting. Ante is 10, initial bet is 20 to 50, raises have to be at least 20, and no total goes over 200 unless everyone involved agrees to stay for the showdown, and then it's table stakes."

She nodded, sat at table and shuffled.

That was when I knew the night was about to get more interesting. She riffled the cards like a fucking pro.