To many, poker would seem to have a focus on the cards.

But, to Adam, it was about the people playing. The cards were constant, but the people changed. That was what made it all so hard to perfect. One playstyle may work against one person, yet could also be wildly unsuccessful against another.

At this, smart people could call it a game of chances. The people playing were not constant, so how could they be quantified into numbers?

To many, such a thing was of course impossible. But, to Adam, numbering down people had been a beneficial past-time, throughout his whole, short life. If it changed, when it came to poker, that would have been an anomaly in of itself.

Yet, this would imply that he had an intricate understanding of, what others thought, with just a look.

That was wrong. Oh, one couldn't even articulate how wrong that was.

The first round of cards came. Troy nearly took it up to his chest, before he took a small glance at it. The other just looked at the corners, while having it laid on the table. Adam didn't point this out to Troy, who seemed to be imitating the others nearly immediately after seeing it.

Adam's first card of the day was a three of hearts. Not even slightly the best card to have. But, in poker, the individual card didn't matter too much. It was the combinations that could be made with it, that decided the whole round's fate.

And, Troy's cards weren't the most important things right now. They could always be checked later.

It was the other's reactions to their cards that was important.

'Make a brief glance around the whole table. I need to see their faces.', Adam sent.

Troy complied with Adam's request a little hastily, with a near flinch of his head going upwards. This attracted a bit of attention, but not enough to worry about. He looked around slowly, and after doing so, looked slightly down again.

'Good job. Next time, try to make it a little calmer looking. Can't have them suspicious of anything wrong, yet.', Adam sent encouragingly. He was a bit worried about the not so motivational aspect of the middle part but felt it was needed. Suspicion was okay in small doses, but it was terrible when they started rounding up to something.

The next round of single cards came around. Swiftly delivered, with no chance to see the underside. It would be great if it weren't so, but it would also ruin the method Adam had been working on.

But would that be so bad? Yes, it would. Wasted time on Adam's part, if it was revealed, that so little work needed to be put in for the same results.

Troy's turn to get a card came around. This time, he just revealed the upper corner of it to Adam.

Another card with a heart on it. Nothing that would help in the game, but was a nice bit of added likeness. What didn't seem to be alike, was the number on it. Troy had gotten himself a seven of hearts.

Straight out, through pure statistics, this would give Adam an eleven point six per cent chance of winning through only card mechanics. Not favourable odds. The best mathematical strategy would be to fold and hope for better cards in the next round.

But, that wouldn't make sense, if one thought of the broader perspective. This wasn't a game of numbers. This was a game of deceit.

If Adam thought about it with a purely logical focus, he would lose outright, after the other players noticed. Being predictable, and having set reactions, was a losing game to be in.

So, folding was outright thrown away. Later into the game, Adam could fold, but, right now, it would show too much.

And the first betting round would soon begin. According to Dr Fidelis, not too much focus was needed to be put into this round, as the bets followed a specific pattern. With the community cards not yet revealed, the only combinations one could have would be on one's own hand. And even that was limited to simple pairs.

The standard, in the first round, would be to bet low, no matter what. One could bet a little higher if they wanted to rile up the pool, but most would simply fold at that point, and the high-better would gain nothing. A good rule of thumb would be to only increase the bet exponentially later in the game. At that point, most would stay inside, due to their bets being wasted, if they folded at that point.

Everybody had now gotten their two cards, but most hadn't looked at them yet. Adam could barely see this, through Troy's eyebrows. He needed to get him into a better sitting position, or the 'look around' requests would be too frequent.

'Reposition yourself on the chair, please. Try to straighten your back, into a more standard position, if you can. This will help in getting a better regular overview of the playing field.', Adam said. Those explanations were getting tedious and longer than what was needed. He needed to make them more concise, in later requests.

Troy did his best in casually rolling his shoulders, and getting them higher up. The sounds of them popping did cause a few glances, but none that implied anything negative.

The automation looked to his left, where Francis was sitting.

“Please, set the bet”, the automation said, with it directed at Francis, who curtly nodded.

He put in ten, starting the pool. No distinct emotion was on his face or general body. But, that was the usual, so it did not contribute much.

After this, it was Darlow's turn. To Adam's surprise, he… didn't put in as much effort in maintaining his cold facade. While his face muscles and his body was nearly, inhumanly still, his eyes showed oh so much. A twitch there, and twitch here.

Seeming random at first, a pattern quickly emerged. His eyes were constantly drawn to his right hand on the table.

The cards. He was debating the value of the cards. Now, if he folded immediately, it would mean that the value was too low to even risk bluffing. But, if he just bet normally, Adam wouldn't be too sure of the cards' values. This, of course, was still in the mindset of the community cards not being revealed yet. Nothing too terrible could be set in stone yet. Combinations could always come later in the game.

“Bet”, Darlow finally said, throwing in a token worth ten himself. In reality, it had just under a second, but Adam didn't care about that.

The focus of the group moved on to the next in line; Zep.

“Bet”, Zep instantly stated, with the customary coin toss. Another ten.

Not much thought was put on that, Adam noted. It was premeditated. She knew how the others would play, and planned accordingly. A sign that the group had been playing together many times before.

Could also be due to agreements of low starting bids, but that sounded too boring to think about. No, there was a deeper meaning to every action.

Next was Esme, who seemed deep in thought. Or, maybe she was drawing out time? Adam wasn't too sure. Physically, she was scratching her back with her right hand, while staring at the cards in her left.

Was this meant to be distracting? Could also be disconcerting. Troy decided to avert his eyes, because of it, after the first three seconds of observation, so it at least worked on some.

“Get on with it”, Charlie said, with a happy tone, not matching the current context. “It's not that hard. I'm sure it doesn't take your mouse wheel so long usually.”

“It's a hamster wheel, for your information”, Esme stated, while putting in her casino token. A ten, like all the others. “Also… bet.”

It was now Charlie's turn. From his look, he certainly didn't appear to need to think about his choices, as he immediately threw in a ten of his own.

“Bet,” Charlie said, glancing at Troy.

A smile was on Charlie's face. Not a still face. Why? This did not correlate, with earlier conversations. Earlier, a few minutes ago, he had been criticizing the effectiveness of faking emotions, or even showing them, so why would he do so himself? Had he deceived Troy? Speaking of him…

And now it was Troy's turn.

…

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Oh, yeah, that meant it was Adam's turn.

So, what should he do? Just fold? Or, play along for now? Luckily, Adam didn't need to think about those things. They had already been planned.

'Throw in a ten as well, please.', Adam instructed Troy to do. He left out the 'and say bet' part. Adam was sure he would remember that.

Troy threw in the ten and sat back in silence.

Apparently not, Adam surmised. That was fine. The others didn't comment on Francis' lack of statements, so Troy shouldn't get treated too different in that regard.

“You're supposed to say 'bet' when you do that”, Charlie supplied from the side.

Again, apparently not. Were there any correlations between Adam's thoughts, and the actions on the physical world? A project to experiment with later.

Troy flushed slightly. That wasn't good.

'Remember, a stone-cold face is needed if we want to win this game. Just act casual about it. Say you just forgot.', Adam quickly sent in response to his observations.

“I forgot”, Troy said apologetically. It was meant to be in a casual tone, but this worked as well. “Bet.” Charlie nodded in approval after hearing the last sentence.

“Are you done halting the game?” the automation asked, with a curious tone. It wasn't hostile, but it was just on the edge of becoming so.

“Sure”, Charlie said back. “Just deal out the cards, like you're supposed to.”

“Quite right”, the automation confirmed, its face moving back to the centre of the table. With the deck of cards in hand, it took the first card to the middle.

An ace of clubs. Not something that helped Adam and Troy in any grand way. A high card, if the need came for it. Purely from looking at the cards, their chances of winning were now seven point two per cent.

And the upward twitch of Darlow's mouth lowered it even more.

The second card was pulled. And it was the three of spades! Adam would have preferred anything with a seven on it, but this was great too. Their chances to win were now increased to fifteen point one per cent.

No noticeable reactions from the others. Implied the chance of another community card being with the value three increased. Something very good. While a pair wasn't the worst, three of a kind was rare enough to outmatch most problematic combinations.

The automation moved to pull out the third card. It would be the last for the round before another betting round began.

A king of hearts. Not bad yet also not good. The chances hadn't fallen, but they weren't going up by even a percentile.

The automation didn't even need to look at Francis before he started up the next betting round.

Two tokens were released to the pool. A ten and a five. Standard play from Francis still. Nothing implying a bigger plan.

Darlow, Adam put extra focus into. He was not putting the knowledge of a hidden smirk away to the archives. It was going into active processing.

No hesitation from Darlow. Like before, two tokens were thrown inside. But no fiver was among them. Instead, it was two tens. Implied, that he was trying to rile up the price. The potential value of Darlows card went up, in Adam's mind. Putting the price upwards, when oneself had great cards, was just asking to be noticed. It was safer to play slow and to let others do so, and just tag along with it, matching their bets.

Zep matched Darlow in the bet, after a second of hesitation. Not too comfortable with Darlow's games, it seemed.

Esme did the same. Those two were fast in their decisions, but not as fast as Darlow.

Charlie's turn. He… did nothing? Instead of actively playing the game, like he was supposed to, Charlie was just playing with one of the tokens. Throwing it into the air, and trying to catch them with a few fingers as possible. And he wasn't any good at it, either.

“Got somewhere else, you want to be?” Darlow asked, in the direction of Charlie.

“Not really. Why are you asking”, Charlie said, throwing the next token much higher in the air. His confidence would likely have grown even bigger if he had catched it. But, it just went too much backwards and fell a bit behind Charlie's chair.

“Just fold the cards, if they're too shit”, Zep nearly ordered.

“Oh, that sounds good”, Charlie stated, while nearly throwing his card to the dealer. “I fold.”

Would now be a good time, to ask for the value of Charlie's cards? It was what was different than planned, when it was possible to do so, without it sounding like Troy trying to actively cheat.

… No. Now would not be a good time to do so. The others were looking mildly annoyed at Charlie's shenanigans. Imitating his delay's would only bring the same result.

Now, play it safe, and wait for the cards to show themself, or raise the bar a little? Playing it safe would be the logical choice, so Adam was inching slowly towards that choice.

But… if Adam's choices were constantly logical, wouldn't he be eliminating the entire goal of this test? He needed to be able to read people in more situations, without the people making it too obvious for him. If he just played it safe constantly, he would only get the reactions to those few actions, which he could take with that mindset.

If he played it unsafely and took larger unlogical risks, he would get better, and more broad varieties of data.

In conclusion, Adam would need to raise the bet. Not with too much though. He wasn't a complete maniac yet. He still had some standards to his work, even if it actively hindered it.

Five would be enough.

'Throw in two tens, and a single five. And, don't worry about saying anything this time. The others seem to be ignoring this rule as well.', Adam sent. It was unusual that they would criticize not stating one's intentions, but then committing the same actions.

Troy compiled cleanly. Two tens and a fiver were taken from the personal token towers and put into the pool.

It was now time for the fourth community card.

And it was the nine of hearts. With the likely possibility of Darlow having an ace, the current chances of winning were now seven per cent flat. And if it came to it, and they both lasted till the final round, Troy and Adam would only have a zero point four per cent chance of winning.

Oh, how he wanted to fold. Adam's logical side was screaming at him. Or, maybe he was just screaming himself. There was no difference. What was most important, was that Troy couldn't hear him.

This round was hereby not played to be won. It was played to learn. For, if they didn't learn to play the people, they would certainly lose. Yeah, that seemed logical.

Francis threw in a twenty. Darlow and Zep mimicked the action. Esme didn't. Adam wished she had.

“I'm raising the stress of the room a little”, Esme helpfully explained, as she threw in three tens. A fifty per cent increase.

Altogether, the pool had grown to be worth a hundred and ninety in tokens. Not too measly of a sum.

With Charlie out of the game, it was now Troy's turn.

'Match her bet.', Adam just stated, holding himself away from asking Troy to just folding outright. Chances were that he would lose. And that was fine. He wasn't stressed about it at all.

Troy threw in three tens, with slight hesitation. He was likely feeling the same stress as Adam. All these bets of theirs were beginning to pile up.

Finally, it was time for the last community card.

The automation movements seemed slower than normal. Was it trying to build up the suspense? If so, it was definitely working for Adam.

The card was revealed.

An six of diamonds. If Darlow had an ace, they would have no chance of winning.

The second last round hereby began.

“I fold”, Francis quietly started it up, handing the cards to the dealer.

“Oh, I'm definitely staying”, Darlow followed it up with, throwing in another thirty in tokens.

“I fold too,” Zep said.

“And, I'm staying as well,'' Esme stated. But, instead of just throwing in another three tens, she added on more to the mix, getting the bet up to forty.

It was now Troy and Adam's turn. The pool was worth two hundred and sixty in tokens. Very high, in the current standards. Three people were left in total. Darlow, Esme, and Troy.

Troy had a single pair. Not the greatest, but it would still beat simple high cards.

With Darlow, there was a good chance that he was working with one or more aces. This could be a deception, though. Troy wasn't too sure yet.

And Esme was the last. Adam had not put too much focus on her actions, and he wholly regretted it. She had been the main raiser, which wasn't good at all. To Adam, this looked to be a high-risk play. High bets implied higher ranking combinations. If Esme had anything that could even be deemed worthy of significance, she would beat Troy.

Again, it all hinted at Troy just having to cut his losses, and not losing any more.

But, that would do any good at all.

'Match the bet, Troy. She isn't getting rid of us.', Adam ordered, with a fine explanation accompanying it.

Troy did so. As Adam had predicted, this earned a flicker of furrowed brows.

“I'm not leaving either”, Troy said, adding to the fire. Adam was so proud of him.

“Is that so?” Darlow asked, with a sweetly, curious voice. This implied, that he would raise it, but he just matched the bet.

Esme didn't say anything. Instead, she just sat there for a moment or two, looking to be deep in concentration. Smart of her. Debating choices was the best thing to do. It would matter too much, though. It would end soon.

“I'm raising,” Esme said, much to Adam's surprise. The only one it would challenge would be Troy. What was she-

Oh, Adam got it now. Esme had a plan.

She had gotten the same conclusion from looking at Darlow. She thought he was faking! So much so, that she was reasonably sure to outright beat him when the game concluded.

And now, she had thrown in a single token. One worth fifty whole tokens.

Three hundred and fifty tokens were in play now.

The game would come in conclusion, after Adam had made a choice. How would he respond?

In all honesty, there were only two actions to choose between. Folding or calling. Raising it further wouldn't make sense.

The earlier statement of Adam's crept back up. They had amassed themselves a rather large pile of bets. If they ended it now, they wouldn't lose more. They could always gain it back in future bets.

But, in comparison to all they had bet until now, losing fifty more wouldn't be too bad in a bigger perspective.

'Match it. We're staying to the end.', Adam requested of Troy.

To Adam's horror, Troy nodded in affirmation. An action that would imply that Troy was talking to another entity.

No, no, no, that wasn't all the action could be taken as. It could be a confirmation of one's own thoughts.

Yes! An action that surely was done by others often.

Should Adam mention to Troy not to be so obvious in his actions? No, that just bring more reactions,

With that thought-process finished, Adam put his focus back on the game. Troy had just finished throwing the fifty into the pool. The betting part had ended. It was time to end the round.

Seeing that Troy had finished his last bet, the automation began speaking.

“All bets are done. All remaining players, please show your cards,” the automation requested, its voice a neutral as always.

Troy dropped his two first, then relaxing back in his chair, as if heavy weights had been released from him. Did he not realize that another game would be starting up in less than five minutes? More importantly, he had closed his eyes, impeding Adam from seeing the other's combinations.

'Get your head back in focus. We don't know if we've won yet.', Adam quickly stated. Looking back on it, he may have increased the volume of his voice.

Adam does give any further thought into it, as Troy put his head back down, opening his eyes.

First, to survey Darlow's cards. It had been a gamble with him.

Looking over it, Adam saw no dreaded ace pair. Actually… he didn't see any combinations.

Darlow had a queen of spades and a jack of clover. Nothing but two high cards. It seemed like Darlow had simply been faking his amusement. A clever tactic, but, in this round, it wasn't clever enough.

Now, it was time to observe Esme's cards. Adam wasn't even sure he wanted to. The stress of it was begging him to not do it.

…

Oh, who was he kidding? Certainly not him. Adam quickly moved his focus to her cards, expectant feelings accompanying him.

…

A statistical miracle, if anybody asked.

Adam had predicted for her to have cards with some greater combinational value. While the meaning behind it may have been skewed, Adam hadn't been entirely wrong.

In her hand, Esme had first had a two of diamonds. Not much could be done with it. No, it was the other card that profounded Adam so much.

She also had a three of clubs. With it, she had a single pair, just like Troy had.

In the game they were equal.

Neither lost. They both won half.

And, that was a win in Adam's book. Now, it was just important to not let it go to his head. The chances had been low from the start, and it was near-pure luck, that they even had a chance now, that-

Troy stood up quickly, after seeing their cards.

“I won!”, he proudly proclaimed, a little too loudly, then what social standard would prefer it to be. “Suck on that, Charlie!”

Oh, boy. Troy didn't know his combinations that well, it seemed. Should Adam inform him, or- Oh, no, it seems like that wouldn't be necessary. The others were already gleefully explaining it to him.

Such was life.