You're either born a gambler or you're not. And if you are, you better make sure you're damn good at it.

“It seems my little student shark hasn’t been doing his homework,” Amy entered character as she dragged Joey over to an open table with a pack of cards on it. She opened them and started to deal. First, she dealt each of them two cards.

“As you’ve already seen, during the first betting round, each player is dealt two cards face-down in front of them. These cards are concealed and can only be used by their respective player. After they’re dealt, players bet, and then the next round starts. This betting round is called preflop.”

“Who comes up with these names? Why’s it called preflop?” Joey inquired.

“Because it happens before the flop.” Amy continued to deal as if that was supposed to clarify things. This time she dealt three cards face up in the middle of the table

“In this round, there are three cards face-up, exposed. These are community cards, meaning they can be used by any player still in the hand. Like before, after the cards are dealt, betting happens, and then the next round starts. This round is the flop.”

“Ok, now I understand why the last one is called preflop. Very logical, but why is this called the flop?”

Amy thought hard for several moments, before she recalled that piece of history. “It was invented by the slime king.”

“...I take back the logical comment.”

Amy was not the patient type and continued dealing. She dealt one more card next to the flop cards. “This round only has one new card face-up, also a community card. This street is called the turn.”

“...Why the turn?”

“Invented by a werewolf.”

Joey closed his eyes. His body was motionless. He’d read some article on the internet that he thought was nonsense at that time, but he didn’t see another way out now. So he tried astral projection.

*THWHACK* A slap by Amy brought him back to his nightmare. “This school believes in corporal punishment,” she threatened.

“How can she slap?!?” Joey shouted.

She dealt one more card in the middle, next to the previous four. “This is the last betting round. Just like the turn, there’s one card. This is called the river.”

‘If I must go, then I’ll go with my head held high.’ Joey gathered willpower and opened his eyes, blazing with courage. “Why’s it called the river?”

“Murloc queen.”

Pitch black darkness!

Joey’s plan was to stay down towards the end of the 10-count to give himself time to recover, but some blows can’t be recovered from! The referee ran over, observed that Joey’s eyes had rolled to the back of his head, and waved his arms signaling the end of the contest. Technical Knock Out.

...

A carry-off by stretcher and an ice pack later...

“After betting on the river, if two or more players are still in the hand, then it goes to showdown. Each player can use their two private preflop cards and any of the community cards to make the strongest hand. That’s all you need to know for now. I’ll be further available during office hours.”

“WHO THE HELL WOULD GO TO OFFICE HOURS!!!” Joey exclaimed over his shoulder as he ran to the opposite side of the room, out of this demon’s domain.

He finally had the opportunity to cash out his chips with Angelo.

“Here you go. Good work this week kid. This is the last night so we’ll see you Sunday,” Angelo bid him goodbye.

‘That’s right. Today’s Wednesday...they don’t run games Thur-Sat. Well, that’s probably best. Enough has happened this week to last me a year.’

He reminisced over recent events and then looked at the cash. He was startled when he realized what he had accomplished in only a few days.

‘With my winnings and money from dealing...this puts me at 5000 square pizza slices.’

Last week the most he could consider buying if he found some spare change somewhere was a garbage quality, square pizza slice in the school cafeteria for one dollar. Now, if he wanted to, he could hoard all the square pizza...

‘What the hell am I thinking about?’ He hit his head on the side to snap himself out of it. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Amy monitoring this, squinting, suspicion flaring.

These alleged ‘people’ he had started to work with recently were having a bad influence on his sanity.

‘Should I quit before I go crazy? No, for $5000 I could afford a lot of therapy and medication.’ Joey understood the value of a dollar.

Maybe he was just exhausted from the long game. ‘Come to think of it, it’s a bit surprising I haven’t passed out by now. I’m not sure if I’m getting the hang of it or if I should thank Marco for doing all the heavy lifting with his terrible play at the end. He made it easy enough, so even though I’m super tired, at least I won’t pass out until I get home.’

This time, he decided to call a taxi as he wouldn’t have the energy if he happened to encounter another thug. The taxi arrived promptly and drove him home.

He had told his mother earlier not to wait up for him so when he arrived, she was already in bed. Lacking the energy to do anything else, he dragged his weary body into bed and embraced the sweet, serene annihilation of sleep.