Scene #9524: Trídéag: Poker Night 2/3

Owner	Pose
Angela	LAST TIME You were given a job! A job to catch a cheater. A cheater named, as it turns out, Rodya, who cheats at poker. How does she cheat at poker? Nobody knows! That's your job to find out. The problem isn't that she's cheating, exactly, but that they don't know how she's doing it and she keeps getting away with it despite winning too often. And now the game is about to begin! The Waitress who has been hovering around your group happens to be working at the big poker match you've been called to observe--and participate in--in an attempt to catch Rodya cheating. Hanafuda, your boss for the day, will also be observing but your affiliation together is meant to be kept under wraps and you all got into this to help old friends(?) of Finn whom he feels obligated to. Rodya isn't the only one playing. Aida has also chosen to participate in the game's main table as has a man in a hawaiian t-shirt and some sort of box-shaped robot with a green eye that looks similar to the ones that were at Lobcorp but looking even shittier, albeit--considerably less smelly. The vault supposedly holding the casino's cash being within the room itself. Part of Hanafuda's job is no doubt to protect that vault until someone has properly won the game. Periodically the waitress provides drinks, but she's keeping an eye on the vault. The dealer starts doling out cards, frowning at Rodya more than paying much attention to the rest of you.
Timekeeper	Sonetto is going to play poker for the first time in her life today, in order to catch an extremely adept cheater. Once Matilda's usage of one of the luck charms clues her into the magic sensation of them, like a smokey metallic smell in the back of her throat and the intuitive colorless draw of her attention, she's discomforted to realize how prevalent they are in the establishment. Sonetto scrunches up her nose and adjusts her tie, distaste for casinos growing. That Rodya doesn't have any of the same magical sense sticking to her doesn't fully convince Sonetto that she's clean, but Hanafuda confirming that they've never found any does. Which is frustrating, because that was the method of cheating that Sonetto was most familiar with! "Poker's good if you know what you're doing, but it's also got the toughest competition, but the best game if you want good odds is Blackjack." So, with her level of wariness, the sheer mundane friendliness that she receives from Rodya puts her off in a confusing way. While Matilda is gone to divine, Sonetto is stiffly awkward and unsure how to behave in the environment, holding her cocktail glass that Matilda ordered for her and watching the roulette without participating. She's drawn into conversation by plain sincerity, tilting her head in confusion as she considers Rodya's words. "But then... why would everyone not exclusively play blackjack? Is it foolishness, or... is there something else to be gained, besides good odds?" Despite her unfamiliarity with gambling, though the poker table is a known quantity: roaming around the games demanded knowledge of a casino, but this here is a battleground. By habit, Sonetto pulls out the chairs for her three companions to sit down, before sitting herself, hands folded together and intently watching every expression at the table.
Riku Asakura	Riku is here, dressed up like a salaryman with the cufflinks that look like Kamen Rider helmets. Despite the nervousness he feels at the game itself, he's holding himself together with an upbeat energy that he always seems to carry with him. He also gives the waitress a big smile, glad to see her again. He also takes note of the people at the table. However, his focus is on Rodya more than the others. After all, she is the cheater and the focus of their job. Upon reviewing his cards and assessing the betting situation, he decides to cut his losses early. He folds and frowns. "Can't do anything with these cards..." he says with a brief amount of frustration.
Angela	''Why would everyone not exclusively play blackjack?'' "Bit of foolishness, sure. A bit of superstition. But also playing blackjack all the time is boring, no?" Rodya asides to Sonetto, immediately setting down her cards after seeing the first two cards on the table. Apparently she won't be cheating this round. "Mm... Everybody's got their superstitions." Aida says. "And some people just intend to cheat anyway." The boxbot says, glaring at Rodya. Aida whistles as Xion wins the first game, "Lucky..." As a new round start, Rodya pays her ante and asks Sonetto, "How was your first game?" ''Can't do anything with these cards...'' Hawaiian Shirt Guy folds as well shortly after hearing that from Riku. "Nature of the game, but you shouldn't just say that out loud, man."
Xion	Having filed into the private table seperate from the rest, partially on purpose to throw off a little of the together illusion, and partially because she didn't want to play poker but she only really knew how to play casino games because one of her siblings in the Nobodies was a freak and made everyone gather around to play various things on community nights he had to run. It was reliable, even if being the 'youngest' meant she got picked on a lot by more experienced card sharks. Sitting down, Xion surveils the table, not lingering on 'her' party' and then as she's slid her cards, peeks at them nonchalantly, before lacing her hands together before her on her cards and calling the initial round. She had to see cards to learn people's play styles and push out habits, because otherwise, everyone's hearts would be guarded, right? 'Lucky....' "Have to play hands to win them, but it's just cards after that." Xion neutrally replies.
Foundation Scions	Matilda, too, is playing poker for the first time in her life- this means, ahead of time, having skimmed just enough of how one plays poker to realize the core fundamental truth: everything in it can clearly be solved by bluffing! Convince a cheater that you have them beat, and surely, they'll crack under that pressure, right? Right? Matilda has resolved to try! That, and by handy-dandy future-divining, surely, will work! Yes! Matilda is nearly late to show up to the table- fashionably late, she'd call it, but she looks like she's in a rush, and as such, spies Sonetto having pulled out chairs for (others and) her! That's what dutiful assistants do, and with no Timekeeper here, well, Matilda will gladly imagine taking up that role! It's real if she daydreams hard enough, that's how that works. "Ah-hem, you have taken my seat," A glare and a nudge to Finn, purely out of the fact she wants to sit next to Sonetto- "It is a simple mistake, but, move along, dépêche-toi." And on the game's start... 'Can't do anything with these cards...' "Hah! My hand, surely, is superior, Monsieur! As I am sure to win, easily, you made the right call giving up so soon-! I commend this." Matilda pushes chips across felt, smug as the devil, before having seen any new cards, and promptly goes dizzy-eyed and nervous when the first flop is bad. "Surely, it is written in fate..!" Matilda Bouanich is many things. Good at poker isn't one of them.
Foundation Scions	'Have to play hands to win them, but it's just cards after that.' "I, I was playing them to test your skill, surely, my ensuing hands will prove to have only the best of cards!" Cope cope cope cope cope. She's stacking her piles of chips taller to disguise the fact that she's the lowest-down immediately.
Angela	"Eh? Oh. Sorry." Finn has played two games of poker in his life, once amongst his colleagues in Yun's Office, and once with his sister. He scootches over and is squinting as his cards... "Wow, you're pretty confident..." He adds, to Matilda. But is she playing him? Is she truly confident or is this a bluff? He can't tell! He's seen so many stories about people losing big early and then winning it all... Rodya decides to make a small raise and see if that just eliminates the other players on its own, though Aida's staying in it.
Riku Asakura	Riku looks surprised by the Hawaiian shirt guy's declaration. "Yeah... sorry. Guess I let my frustration get the better of me!" He says to the man, trying to sound more upbeat. This is especially true when he calls the bet of the next set of cards. From here on out, he watches himself and the cheater more closely. More to make sure he doesn't spill his hand out for others to see. He watches the cheater, too, trying to figure out how they are cheating. Though it doesn't seem like she's openly cheating. This must be why they need fixers like them in the first place! Also, Riku's poker experience has been recent. Once more, he folds when the bet is raised. Though this time he stayed in the game longer than the opening.
Foundation Scions	Quietly, when the turn comes back around to her, Matilda mumbles out an "I fold." Best of cards indeed.
Xion	Xion continues her simple strategy of looking at her cards and slowrolling the game. Matilda takes comments not meant for her, but in a way, that's cute as well. "Surely. You have to play chips to end the game, too. May as well make the hands worth it, right?" She asks. As her turn in the second game comes around, and she's just in a showdown with the table, the noirette smiles and picks up the same pile of chips Matilda had originally bet with, a solid amount. "I think your heart was in the right place." She smiles, faint, while she places the chips forward.
Timekeeper	"But also playing blackjack all the time is boring, no?" "Is it more fun to lose on occasion?" The question sounds genuine, rather than sarcastic. "How was your first game?" It's just in Sonetto's nature to play slowly and thoughtfully, taking as few risks as one possibly can while playing poker. Her poker face is mostly occluded by a constant expression of vague consternation, more engrossed in the other people at the table than at her own cards. Rather than directly answering-- frankly, she thinks nothing about her first game of poker at all-- Sonetto uses the forthrightness that she isn't using on cards on Rodya instead. "Why is it that everyone continues to play at your table, despite knowing that you are cheating?" "Nature of the game, but you shouldn't just say that out loud, man." "It may be a tactic known as bluffing," Sonetto informs the Hawaiian shirted man, before Riku immediately folds.
Riku Asakura	'Why is it that everyone continues to play at your table, despite knowing that you are cheating?' Riku isn't sure that you're supposed to immediately accuse the cheater of cheating, directly to their face in the middle of a game, no less. It will certainly turn up the heat on the cheater, but they're supposed to be doing this incognito and also trying to figure out how she's doing it. He can't reveal who he is now, lest it ruin the investigation. Thought he likely feels the same way as Sonetto does. All this cloak-and-dagger stuff isn't something he's comfortable with. He just does his best not to spit out his drink.
Angela	Rodya ... loses the round despite calling Xion's latest raise. "Very lucky." She observes. "And here I thought you were trying to spook me out with that last raise." She immediately raises the next set without looking at her cards, turning her attention to Xion. "I've got a good feeling about this one." Then and only then does she peek at her hand, and then she smiles back at Xion and winks at her. "What's your trick this time, Rodion?" Boxbot says. "hah, come on, call me Rodya, like I always say. It's much cuter than Rodion." She collects a cocktail from the waitress and downs it like it's water. Shifting her tray, the waitress offers a a citrusy rasberry cocktail over to her. Rodya hiccups and tells Sonetto, "Wouldn't you think it's boring to win every time at a game?" Rodya asks, despite her reputation of winning way too many games herself. "Some people cheat, yeah, though I'm not going to admit it if I am, heh--" She winks. "But sometimes the game people play here isn't poker, it's who can cheat the best without getting caught." ''It may be a tactic known as bluffing.'' "Don't you normally bluff that you have a good hand?" Aida asks. "Nah, sometimes you can pretend you have a middle of the road hand by betting small to lure your opponents into making more bets, get more of their cash. Your friend there--think she's been doing a bit of that." She nods to Xion. "For me, well, I feel if you are too concerned with how you're going to cheat, the less attention you pay to the cards and the other players as you wait for the perfect chance to activate your luck tattoo or whatever." "Unless you found some new novel way to get at it." Aida says. "Which is why," Rodya asides to Sonetto. "That these people are playing at me. Find out my 'trick' and maybe they can use it." She turns her head to look over to Matilda. "You a rich girl?" Rodya wins big on that hand with what would've been a twopair, and then preemptively folds before she has to ante on the next round right as the blinds get bigger. The man in the hawaiian shirt starts to roll up his sleeve only for-- Hanafuda to step forward and grab his hand, pulling down the sleeve--revealing a long tattoo of a rabbit. "That was a bit too obvious. I've seen that exact tattoo before. Good luck to our other players, but I'm keeping an eye on you too." She pulls him off to his panicked protestations. "And of course if you're caught..." The Waitress murmurs. "You forfeit your chips. And sometimes even a limb." "Good thing I folded there. Had a King and a Ten." Rodya murmurs to Sonetto.
Xion	Xion leans back after a bit, the chips calculated, the hands locked in on, playing enough to put chips in the game and picking up a second hand with medium hands. It's not that her hands are incredibly strong, on-suited, or pocket paired... As long as Xion can focus entirely on the cards she's a complete natura. Of course, there's table talk, and as she's peeled off the cards to regard the hearts, she starts to slip. "Sometimes anything other than success it's acceptable to someone. And to them I say: Don't play cards. Luck is a wave, and riding it is as much about the wave as about yourself." As she talks, she lets chips roll onto the table, just counting out bets to see cards until Riku says 'two hundred' and Xion sees the two jacks plainly on the table. Riku had been tossing hand after hand, so clearly this was a strong one from him, and, pitches her cards to avoid paying two hundred more. Accused of baiting out more bets, Xion shrugs. "Sometimes the price to see cards goes up."