The five card stud table Lucy had been at had been just the way she wanted it for hours.

Now, she was wondering if it was time to wrap things up. She had enough money to live on for the next two or three days...

She'd just been dealt: 10 of spades, 3 of hearts, 4 of diamonds, 4 of clubs, King of diamonds.

The thirty-something blonde woman on her left and the older man on her right (late sixties maybe?) had good poker faces. The dealer, also a white guy, just seemed a bit bored.

Lucy had a slightly funny feeling about this hand. She didn't think it was anything psychic? Or was it?

And either way... was it a bad feeling or a good feeling? She couldn't tell-- it was too small-- so far.

(Choice time.
--Should she get rid of any cards in order to get new ones?
--If so, which should she lose, and which keep?
--Or should she just fold and walk away?
--Or is it time to try a mental check of one or both of the other players? The blonde and the older guy are both new enough to the table that she hasn't tried looking into their minds yet...)

At first, Lucy will just play the hand straight:  she'll ante up, keep the pair and the king, and take two new cards.  Trying to read every opposing player every hand would get really exhausting really fast, maybe she'll legitimately luck into a great hand, or maybe one of the others will fold and she'll only have to try reading the other?  She takes a sip of her vodka tonic - comped, of course, she's been playing for hours, and she had become a familiar sight at the stud and hold'em tables over the last few weeks.  The more perceptive servers knew her drinks by now.

Lucy loses the 10 of spades and 3 of hearts.

She gets the 5 and 6 of hearts.

So, the 5 and 6 of hearts, and the 4s of diamonds and clubs, and the King of diamonds.

The other players don't drop out. In fact, the older man doubles his bet. The others call. The blonde, in particular, doesn't seem to mind the pot being raised at all, but that could just be her being hard to read.

That funny feeling grows just a bit. Again, not sure if it's a psychic thing or not, nor if it's good or bad.

(Call, fold, raise, or do a mental check on someone/everyone?)

Hmm.  Not exactly lucky, but not particularly unexpected either.  She's not at all confident that a wimpy little pair of 4s is going to carry her, especially betting into so many other players.

This is the way she's disciplined herself to play: relatively conservatively, mostly only betting when she knows she has value in her hand, or the occasional straight-up bluff just for the sake of appearances, timing her big plays (and saving her psychic scans!) for those occasional moments when both she and her opponents think they have something worth betting.  A pair of 4s isn't going to get the job done for her:  time to fold this one.

Lucy folds. She's still got more than two days' worth of winnings for the night.

She goes and cashes out.

Now what? Food, sleep, or other?

Dinner time!  Or, whatever would be the proper name for a meal at one-thirty in the morning on a Wednesday.  Fortunately for Lucy, a hard-core night owl, most of the establishment operated 24/7.

She takes half of her night's proceeds in cash, arranging for the other half to be credited to the bill for her suite upstairs in the hotel, and then heads for one of the casino's restaurants, the one with that fantastic jambalaya she'd gotten a few nights ago.  She'll place her order and sit alone at a table off in the corner, thumbing idly at the screen of her burner iPhone, checking for texts: she's getting low on her "medication", she'll need to be making contact with her dealer in the next day or two.

Before she's done, the blonde and the older guy from that last hand come in and order, too, about three minutes apart.

The older guy keeps shooting very quick glances Lucy's way. Like seriously, every minute or two. Very fast, not like he's trying to get her attention (far from it) nor catch her eye (though it keeps happening anyway).

The blonde, on the other hand, only looks at Lucy once (or does Lucy only catch her looking once?), but noticeably frowns when she does it. Hm.

Hmm.  Not good.  Cops maybe?  That could be unpleasant.  She doesn't know of any actual formal law against using psychic powers to cheat a casino (as far as she knows, she's the only actual legitimate psychic in existence, why would there be a law for that?) but she's been unabashedly guilty of things which are very unambiguously illegal, before she arrived at her current poker-cheating scheme, starting with stealing twelve thousand dollars from her stepfather's safe four years ago on the night she ran away.  Not to mention she's got what's left of her "medication" in the inside pocket of her black leather bomber jacket: a few pills of unprescribed Vicodin and a few ounces of some really excellent cocaine.

She'll have to try reading them both.

13:27, Today: Lucy Lopez rolled 11 using 2d6+1.  read the blonde woman.
13:27, Today: Lucy Lopez rolled 7 using 2d6+1.  read the older man.