Billionaire Cashback System: I Can't Go Broke!-Chapter 34: All In

Ryan looked at the two kings in his hand and thought about patience.

Not comfortable patience, the kind that costs something. He’d been at this table for forty minutes now. He’d won one hand, lost two small ones deliberately to keep the temperature in the room comfortable, and folded everything else.

His chip stack sat at roughly thirty-four thousand, slightly up from where he’d started, and the table had spent the last thirty minutes recalibrating what they thought they knew about him.

That was the point.

He knew enough about poker now — from watching, from the hands that had already played out — to understand that the cards were almost secondary. The real game was information. What people thought you had. What you let them think. How long you could sit with a strong hand and look like a man with nothing.

He had two kings.

In the hierarchy of starting hands, a pair of kings was the second best thing you could be dealt. Only two aces beat it before the board cards even appeared. He’d read that. Remembered it clearly.

He kept his face at exactly the same setting it had been all evening.

The bet came around to him. Freddie opened — medium chips, the same aggressive energy he’d been running on all night, still apparently convinced the next hand was the one that would turn things around for him. Two others called.

Marvin raised.

Ryan looked at Marvin’s chips. Looked at the board — nothing yet, this was before the shared cards came out, just the opening bet based on the two private cards each player held.

Marvin had been raising pre-flop selectively all night. When he raised before the board cards appeared, he had something real. Ryan had watched him do it three times. Each time he’d had a strong hand. The man wasn’t reckless — he was deliberate, which made him more dangerous than Freddie but also more readable, because deliberate people had patterns.

Ryan called. Flat, no raise, just matching the number.

Marvin glanced at him.

Ryan looked back with nothing.

The flop came down.

King of hearts. Ten of clubs. Three of diamonds.

Ryan now had three kings. One pair in his hand, one on the board, and the third king from the board completing it. Three of a kind. A strong hand — very strong. The question was whether anyone held the ten and had three tens, which was lower, or whether anyone had two cards that made a straight possible as more board cards appeared.

The ten was the danger. If the board produced a jack and a queen or a jack and a nine, someone holding the right cards could make a straight that beat three kings.

He watched the table.

Freddie bet immediately, same as always. Reflex, it wasn’t strategy – he knew that now. Ryan had stopped worrying about Freddie two hands ago.

Marvin called, smooth and fast.

Ryan called.

Christian — who’d been playing quietly and winning small amounts consistently, the most disciplined player at the table — looked at the board for a long moment, then called.

That was the one that registered. Christian didn’t call without a reason.

The fourth card came down.

Queen of hearts.

Ryan watched the table react to it.

Freddie didn’t move. Marvin’s hand went to his chips and then stopped, which was a thing Ryan had noticed him do once before — he touched his chips when a card helped him and pulled back when he caught himself. The pull-back meant the queen hadn’t helped.

Christian looked at it once and looked away. Too quickly.

Ryan thought about that. The queen meant a straight was now possible if someone held a jack and a nine, or a jack and an eight. Christian had been playing carefully all night — a careful that came from having enough to protect. If he’d come into this hand with cards that the queen just connected to something, the quick look-away was the tell of someone trying not to react to good news.

Ryan bet.

Decent ammount. A number saying he was in the hand but not screaming about it. An invitation to stay rather than a threat.

Freddie raised.

Ryan almost smiled. Freddie raising after the queen meant one of two things — he’d made something, or he was Freddie and was doing what Freddie always did.

Marvin called Freddie’s raise, then looked at Ryan.

Ryan raised back. Bigger this time. Enough to make the pot significant.

The room behind them stirred.

Freddie stared at his chips. Called, but slower than usual.

Marvin called.

Christian sat with his cards for a long moment. Then he raised.

The pot was now substantial, enough that people in the back of the spectator group had moved forward to see better. Ryan heard Zara shift behind him without turning to look.

Ryan looked at Christian’s raise. Added it up. Called.

The final card came down.

Two of spades.

Completely blank. It connected to nothing, helped nobody, just arrived and sat there uselessly on the felt like an uninvited guest.

Ryan had three kings.

He looked at the pot. Looked at his remaining chips.

Looked at Christian.

Christian was holding his cards with both hands now, which was different from how he’d been holding them. Both hands meant he was either protecting something valuable or managing something he was nervous about.

Freddie bet first. Real money this time, bigger than the reflexive amounts from earlier — he’d found something tonight and he was going all in on it. He pushed a significant stack forward like he had been waiting all evening for this specific moment.

Ryan thought about Freddie’s hand. The queen had made him bet big. A queen in his hand plus the queen on the board would give him three queens — lower than three kings but still a powerful hand. That was probably it. Freddie had three queens and thought he had the table.

Marvin folded. Clean, without drama, just pushed his cards forward and sat back.

Christian raised Freddie.

And there it was.

Christian had been building something quietly across every card. The raise before the final card, the double-hand grip, the quick look away when the queen landed — Ryan assembled it.

Christian had a straight. Jack-nine in his hand, connected by the ten-queen on the board plus one more card somewhere in the sequence. A straight beat three of a kind.

If Ryan was right, he was behind Christian and ahead of Freddie.

If he was wrong about Christian, he had the best hand at the table.

He sat with it for a moment that felt longer than it was.

The room was completely silent. The party had been dead for ten minutes, everyone gathered around the table now, drinks held and forgotten.

Ryan pushed his entire remaining stack into the center of the table.

All of it.

"All in," he said.

The silence got louder somehow.

Freddie looked at the mountain of chips Ryan had just committed. Looked at his own cards. Looked at the board. His jaw moved slightly. Then he called — all in as well, his stack going forward.

Christian looked at Ryan’s chips. Looked at the pot, which was now the largest it had been all evening by a distance. He looked at his cards.

"You have the king," Christian said.

Ryan didn’t answer.

"Three kings," Christian said. "You’ve had it since the flop and you’ve been letting us build the pot."

"You going to call?" Ryan said.

Christian looked at him for a long moment.

Then he called.

All three men turned their cards over simultaneously.

Freddie had a queen in his hand. Three queens. He’d been right — and in any other hand, on any other night, it might have been enough.

Christian spread his cards.

Jack and nine.

The board showed ten, queen, and a seven — Ryan looked at it and recounted and felt something drop in his stomach for half a second before he recounted again and confirmed what he thought. No straight. The seven broke the sequence. Christian had a pair of jacks at best.

He’d misread Christian.

Which meant Christian had been bluffing.

Which meant Ryan’s three kings were the best hand at the table by a distance.

Ryan turned his cards over. King of spades, king of diamonds. Three kings with the king of hearts on the board.

The table stared at it.

Freddie put both hands flat on the felt and looked at the ceiling.

Christian sat back in his chair and laughed — a short, genuine sound, the laugh of someone who had committed to a bluff at the worst possible moment.

Ryan pulled the pot toward him.

It took a moment to stack. It was a significant moment.

When it was done, he had somewhere north of ninety thousand dollars in chips sitting in front of him, which represented a sixty thousand dollar profit on a thirty thousand dollar buy-in, which he was going to have to figure out the tax implications of on top of everything else, which was a problem for a different evening.

The room was very quiet.

Marvin was looking at Ryan with focused attention, like he was completely revising a position held with confidence an hour ago.

"You said you’d never played," Marvin said.

"I hadn’t," Ryan said.

"And you just bluffed Christian into bluffing himself."

"I didn’t bluff anything," Ryan said. "I had three kings."

"You let us build the pot for three rounds."

"I had three kings," Ryan said again. "I just waited until the pot was worth winning."

Freddie still had both hands flat on the table, still looking at the ceiling, apparently conducting some kind of internal review.

Christian was smiling now, the genuine article, looking at Ryan like he was trying to figure out where he’d been hiding.

Marvin leaned forward. "Thirty thousand buy ins like it’s nothing. Winning against veterans when you claim to never have played...you gonna tell me who you really are?"

Ryan stacked the last of his chips into a neat column and looked up.

"Ryan Russo," he said. "Tech startup. Early stages."

From behind him he heard Zara make a sound that was definitely a laugh she turned into something else.

Marvin looked at the chips.

"Deal," he said quietly to the dealer.

Ryan settled back in his chair.

His phone was in his pocket, the unknown text sitting in it unanswered.

*We are onto you Russo. It’s only a matter of time.*

He looked at the new hand being dealt to him.

Right now, in this room, at this table, with ninety thousand dollars in chips and a room full of people who’d written him off two hours ago — time felt like something he had plenty of.