House of Cards by Conall Ryan

"Poker is a game for blood." Martin Oakes’s face could look inspired and wrung out at the same time, or like nothing at all. He turned from the blackboard, shoulders shrugged forward, and stared at his pupils. There were seven of them, spaced evenly around the oval-shaped table, and his stare could make them all feel cold as nails. ‘‘Show nothing,’’ he said. ‘‘A little swallow, too much blinking, the slightest curl of a smile or frown, and you’re done.’’ Their schoolbooks stood next to the door, pyramids of math and history and science, topped by Scarne on Cards, ‘‘The newest revised edition of the cardplayer’s bible, by John Scarne, the world’s foremost card authority.’’ Martin Oakes never let them use the book in class. ‘‘The only things you bring to a poker table are your money, your brains, and your guts,’’ he was fond of saying, and as things stood, he let them bring only two of those. ‘‘What is poker?’’ he asked.

‘‘A game for blood,’’ they said in unison. Carl Rice’s voice cracked.

‘‘I didn’t hear you.’’

‘‘A GAME FOR BLOOD!’’

Martin Oakes scratched the stubble on his cheeks. He hadn’t slept. Coming home agitated after a game in Concord with two stockbrokers, an architect, and a surgeon, he’d played Chopin Nocturnes, smoked cigarettes, watched the sun come up, and finally run a mile. It took Martin Oakes hours to work a poker game out of his system. The stockbrokers had known the odds, played sound poker, and drunk Scotch. Martin Oakes had waited. When the Scotch kicked in, they became undisciplined and careless. The architect couldn’t resist spreading his hand on the table after a successful bluff. That cost him later. And if the surgeon operated on patients the way he played cards, Martin Oakes feared for their lives. He’d lost a night’s sleep and won twelve hundred dollars.

In consequence of the effort, his head ached and nowhis students grated on him even more than usual. He circled the table, pausing to rearrange their hands, throwing chips into the pot when the bets were too low, pulling them out when the bets were too high.