Heart to Heart

Poker. 600 words, 3 minute read. With Claude Sonnet.

The air conditioning in the Bellagio's high-stakes room couldn't touch the heat radiating from eight million in chips. Johnny pressed his thumb against the smooth edge of his hole cards, feeling his pulse in his fingertip. Across the felt, Kim Henderson's grandmother's pearls clicked against the desk as she shifted in her chair, her eyes fixed on something distant beyond the tournament floor.

The ceiling cameras caught everything except what Johnny needed – the invisible geometry between Kim's tells and her true hand. He'd spent twenty years learning to read people like algebra equations, but Kim played like she was solving a different kind of math.

Jack, the dealer, placed the river card with practiced precision: Nine of Hearts. The board now showed King of Spades, Ten of Diamonds, Seven of Hearts, Three of Clubs, and that final Nine. Johnny's pocket Kings felt heavier by the second.

"Check." Kim's voice had the same casual tone she'd used eight hours ago, asking Jack if she was holding her cards right.

Johnny watched her hands drift to her chips. Most players stacked them in twenties – clean, efficient columns for quick counting. Kim's towers rose in odd numbers, thirteen chips here, seven there, like she was building sandcastles instead of managing her bankroll. A quiet melody drifted across the table – something from an old musical, but not quite a tell. She'd hummed through both her strongest hands and her worst bluffs.

His mentor's voice echoed: "Poker's not about the cards you see – it's about the story they're telling." But Kim's story read like poetry instead of prose.

The producer gestured to hurry the action. The lights felt hotter, the crowd's whispers louder.

Probability maps unfolded in Johnny's mind. Her check didn't fit with pocket Tens. Ace-King would have played differently on the turn. A flush draw with hearts? Her betting patterns throughout the tournament suggested otherwise. The math said call, but math hadn't helped anyone read Kim all day.

She looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time since the river card. Something flickered there – not the manufactured confidence of a bluff, but a genuine warmth that made his carefully constructed equations waver.

"The pot's not getting any smaller," she said softly, her fingers absently arranging three chips into a heart shape.

Johnny pushed his stack forward. "All in."

The words hung in the air for two heartbeats before Kim's face brightened. She turned over her cards without ceremony: Two and Four of Hearts. The crowd's reaction crashed over them like a wave.

Johnny's Kings face-planted into the felt. "But... that starting hand..."

"I know." Kim shrugged, a slight blush coloring her cheeks. "The hearts just looked pretty together. Silly, right?"

Jack efficiently pushed the mountain of chips toward Kim. She hadn't touched her pearls once during the hand – the tell Johnny had been certain meant strength. Instead, she'd been playing an entirely different game.

The cameras swarmed as Kim stood, champagne already appearing at her elbow. She paused, turning back to Johnny with eyes that held neither triumph nor apology. "Sometimes the best strategy is not having one at all.”

---