"Gentlemen." Charlotte sat down on the chair as the game paused, waiting for her to join, and smirked when she found out that she was the only woman at the table. She had an uneventful day, as usual, and so she chose to gamble her luck and her money. "How much are you in for, madam?" asked the dealer. Charlotte glanced around the table, sizing up the other players' stacks. "Five hundred." she replied. Several towers of chops were cut out and placed in front of her, exactly as what she was expecting. It wasn't a small game by any stretch of the imagination—by Charlotte's count some of them had several thousands, even hundred thousand in front of them—but compared to the sort of wealth she knew they commanded, they were playing what amounted to penny stakes. "Five hundred it is," the dealer answered. "Shall we play?" The game resumed. The action was fast and reckless; exactly what Charlotte would expect from men playing stakes far below what they could afford. Almost every other hand ended with a huge pot. Often, that's the sign of a weak player, but as the game progressed, Charlotte began to see that they weren't playing badly at all. They had a kind of raw cunning of their style that made up for their lack of restraint. A few hands later, Charlotte got involved in a pot with another player. "Two fifty." she said, throwing some chips into the middle. It was a big bet. Big enough to be scary. But it obviously didn't scare Charlotte Henley off. "Your turn."
