“Are you going to split the tens?”
“How do you do that?”
“Are you for real, lady?” When he saw the confused look on my face, he explained. “You put out another bet, same as the first, and you are now playing two hands with each of them having a ten in them.”
The dealer had a seven faceup, and I knew that a high proportion of ten-and-higher cards remained. The odds of me getting one or two very good hands were favorable. I pushed out another thousand dollars and waited anxiously as the dealer laid a card on each of my tens. One was a king and the other a nine. I stood on both hands and won them when the dealer flipped his hole card and it was a jack.
Four thousand dollars. Gwen and Basia squealed together as I stacked the chips carefully in front of me, hoping that no one noticed my quivering hands. Their screams attracted a few more people, and the growing crowd added to my nervousness.
The dealer reshuffled and the play continued. Plagued by doubt induced by the big hand and the freshly reshuffled deck, I slipped into more conservative wagers. As the hands and bets flowed in front of me, the game entered a satisfying rhythm in my brain. I wasn’t even trying to win anymore. I was just maximizing my probabilities, trying to find the optimum bet for the situation…observing the cards, calculating probabilities, and minimizing errors.
I was in my groove, and so…I kept on winning. A lot.
Somewhere in that haze, I vaguely recall someone offering me a drink, which I refused, and another player sat down next to me. He was making small bets and trying to engage me in conversation. I ignored him, as I was too focused on the game in front of me. He was helpful, as his hands revealed more cards and improved my estimates of the odds. I continued to win more than I lost. Much more.
I was killing it.
Bento dealt the next hand. My cards were nineteen in total.
“Stay,” I said calmly.
He flipped, drew, and busted. And swore softly under his breath.
Gray shook her head. “Damn. She did it again. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Basia clapped from her seat, her baby bump bouncing against the table edge. “Lexi is our blackjack queen.”
I glanced up at Bento, noticing his smile had become more of a grimace for the last ten hands. I could practically hear his teeth grinding. His shuffles were getting increasingly dramatic, and he had started to glare at me while keeping that grimace in place. As if daring me to lose.
I didn’t. I just kept winning.
A couple of hands later, another dealer replaced him and my fellow player left. Another player tried to sit down but, after a look from the dealer, decided that a different table might be better. This dealer was older and had a bald head and a thick mustache and looked like he ate nails for breakfast. His name tag said Frank, but he seemed more a Bruno who worked as a bouncer in a mafia club. His hands were as big as laptops and his biceps strained against his white dress shirt. I was sure he had “badass” tattooed on his body in multiple places. If they were going after intimidation-style tactics, it was working.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said, voice gravelly, as if he’d smoked a hundred cigarettes just this morning. “I’ll be your new dealer.”
“Hi, Frank,” Gwen said sweetly, lifting her cherry daiquiri at him. Apparently, she wasn’t scared, or maybe she’d just had one too many of those daiquiris to know better.
He grinned, flashing a silver tooth, which made me swallow hard. Then he turned a laser gaze on me. “You a student?” he asked.
“No,” I replied.
“A math teacher?”
“No.” He was clearly fishing, trying to figure out how I was winning.
“So, how are you doing so well in the game?”
“Luck,” I squeaked, but it kind of came out like a question. I could see he wasn’t buying it. I was a terrible liar anyway.
Thankfully, that concluded our small talk until I won the next three hands in a row. Frank paused and then eyed my chips. “So, how much are you up now?”
“About six thousand dollars, give or take,” Basia offered cheerfully.
“Six thousand, seven hundred and ninety,” I corrected automatically.
Frank raised an eyebrow. “That’s pretty specific.”
“It’s the exact amount,” I replied. “I’ve been keeping track.”
