"robert asprin - 06 - little myth marker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asprin Robert)

worry. Like the Geek says, I always reclaim my
marker."

I winked at him and waved vaguely as he left, already
intent on the next hand as I tried vainly to figure out the
rules of the game.

If my grand gesture seemed a little impulsive, remem-
ber that I'd been watching him play all night, and I
knew how much he had lost. Even if all of it was on
lOUs, I could cover it out of my winnings and st'ill show
a profit.

You see, Grunk was right. I had been winning steadily
all night ... a fact made doubly surprising by my ig-
norance of the game. Early on, however, I had hit on a
system which seemed to be working very well: Bet the
players, not the cards. On the last hand, I hadn't been
betting that I had a winning hand, I was betting that
Grunk had a losing hand. Luck had been against him all
night, and he was betting wild to try to make up for his

losses.

Following my system, I folded the next two hands,
then hit them hard on the third. Most of the other
players folded rather than question my judgment.
Grunk stayed until the bitter end, hoping I was bluffing.
It turned out that I was (my hand wasn't all that strong),
but that his hand was even weaker. Another stack of
chips tumbled into my hoard.

"That does it for me," Grunk said, pushing his re-
maining chips toward the Geek. "Cash me in."

"Me too."

"I should have left an hour ago. Would have saved
myself a couple hundred."

The Geek was suddenly busy converting chips back to
cash as the game broke up.

Grunk loitered for a few minutes after receiving his
share of the bank. Now that we were no longer facing
each other over cards, he was surprisingly pleasant.

"You know, Skeeve," he said, clapping a massive
hand on my shoulder, "it's been a long time since I've
been whipped that bad at dragon poker. Maybe Pidge