: Posted by Lieutenant Valerie Pain (Chief Medical Officer) in Falcon's Maze - Lounge
: : Posted by Civilian Lok (Performer/Card Dealer) in Falcon's Maze - Lounge
: : : Posted by Lieutenant Valerie Pain (Chief Medical Officer) in Falcon's Maze - Lounge
: : : : Posted by 2nd Lieutenant Chester "Chessman" George Burke (Alpha 3) in Falcon's Maze - Lounge
: : : : : Posted by Lieutenant Valerie Pain (Chief Medical Officer) in Falcon's Maze - Lounge

<SNIP>

: : : : "Alright," Lok said, reaching in to his bag and pulling out a smaller bag. "Play money, for now. We each start with a thousand in chips - reds are five, greens twenty-five, blues are fifty, blacks are one-hundred."
: : : :
: : : : He counted out twenty red chips, ten green chips, five blue chips, and four black chips. He slid them over to Valerie, and then counted out the same amount for herself.
: : : :
: : : : "The ante is five, bets begin after the first card goes in," he said, taking his PADD and wiping it clean, and then putting only "Player 1" and "Player 2". He tossed in a red chip, and then took the deck and shuffled it as he had previously.
: : : :
: : : Valerie picked up one of her red chips from the pile, and put it in the middle of the table.
: : :
: : : : "Okay then, let's play," he said, and dealt out five cards to each of them, starting with Val.
: : : :
: : : : When he got his hand, he showed nothing, but he'd gotten three weak cards, one mid-level card, and one ultimate card. The names on the cards were different from the source material, since they focused upon Earth's Greek mythology, but for the most part, it made sense, especially given the ultimate cards. Red had Haephestus, green had Gaia, White had Zeus, Blue had Poseidon, and Black had Hades - the last of which Lok happened to hold. However, besides that, he had an Eagle (2/2 White), a Merman (4/4 Blue), a Hellhound (4/5 Black), and, as the only other formidable card, a Submarine (8/8 Red - as the God of manufacture, and something of a male counterpart to Athena, goddess of crafts, who had few myths about him, Haephestus instead had increasingly powerful soldiers and weaponry, though the mid-level cards were of heroes such as Ajax and Hector). It wasn't much to play with, but seeing as Hades could get him three points if he didn't save it until late in the game, along with the Submarine, he figured that the rest could at least work to his advantage.
: : : :
: : : : What Lok didn't know was that Valerie had gotten a much better hand. Her lowest card was The Ghost King, Minos (4/4 Black), followed by a Lesser Cyclops (6/6 Blue), a Long-Range Bomber (7/8 Red), the Goddess Amphitrite (8/9 Blue), and Charon (9/10 Black). If she played right, she could slaughter him.
: : : :
: : : : "Place the card face-down, and we'll begin betting."
: : : :
: : : : Instead of immediately getting behind in points, Lok played the Hellhound, hoping that he'd at least tie something.
: : : :
: : : : ~ Lok
: : : : OOC: I used two regular decks of cards with a somewhat complicated way of computation to figure the card values, just to let you know.
: : :
: : : Valerie paused for a moment to look at her cards. As with any unfamiliar game it was going to take her a few turns to get the feel of it. With any new game she tended to pick a low to mid range card first. Then she could make any mistakes on those so she wasn't wasting good cards. Well, that was the theory anyway, not that it always worked.
: : :
: : : Going with that normal plan, she played the Lesser Cyclops.
: : :
: : : - Val
: :
: : Lok knew that the first couple of rounds were going to be rough, so he decided that he might as well just save himself some play money. The betting in each Gathering round was the same as the final round of poker - bet back-and-forth until the reveal. He just hoped the woman bet low, because he was probably only going to call her.
: :
: : "Your bet, miss," Lok said.
: :
: : He placed his other cards by his chips, face-down, waiting to see what she would do. He ran his fingers through his hair - a luxury not many Orion men had - and leaned back. True, he was trying to hard to appear nonchalant, but he also realized his hair probably looked like a mess.
: :
: : ~ Lok
:
: Valerie decided to play it safe to start with, until she got a feel for the game, and bet 25.
:
: - Val

Knowing that he'd probably lost the round, he simply called the bet, tossing in his chip.

"Alright, turn over your card."

He turned his over, and then saw the Lesser Cyclops on the other side, and just shook his head.

"Three points for player two, the pot is now at fifty, minimum bet is now twenty-five," Lok said. "I forgot to mention two other rules: a player can fold at any time and concede the hand if there are more than two players involved, automatically giving one point per remaining round to both the player attacking and defending against the person folding - which doesn't apply here, but should we get company, it will - and the minimum opening bet for any round is half the pot on the table."

He had no idea how he'd forgotten the latter, though he realized that mentioning the former was just so that other people might be enticed to play.

"Play your next card."

Realizing he was in deep, given the card that Valerie had played, Lok decided to ditch his weakest card, the Eagle. It would give the woman three more points, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about it.

~ Lok