All in

He had really been hoping to get to get clubs since they made up the majority of his cards but spades were a close second and he really wasn't going to complain about not being screwed over before the game had begun.

He had 500 chips on the line, this was a big bet for him, maybe not for others but certainly for him, he only had 4700 to his name so this was a large chunk of his chip net worth.

But it was all calculated since he had read up on many of the habits of the elves and their playing styles which were largely pacifistic in their nature, and they ended up being severely overcome by reservedness.

This was a weakness that could be exploited by targeting one person, most likely the one who had the same suit to collect as you.

The reason that you would most likely get away with it, according to the book, was that the elves were risk averse, they wouldn't dare to pick on one singular guy even if they despised him, since that was a huge risk to their survival in the wild.

If you picked a card that you either already had, or didn't need, you had to put it back while revealing it to the other players.

That was the sequence of play, but Noah still had to pay attention to everything else, and that was where the true difficulty of the game lay, the cheating aspect.

As described before the elementals were a pain to deal with as they could only be sensed by minute differences in the environment but there was also the magic that the elves pride themselves on.

The cheating techniques that these could be used for were touched upon by the book, but not entirely, it merely described how to tell if certain kinds were being used.

Which was helpful and all, but it didn't tell you anything about countermeasures that you could employ to mitigate the help that the cheating party would receive.

The first player to pick was picked by drawing straws, Julie got the shortest meaning play started from her and would go clockwise, leaving Noah to be last which was statistically the worst and best.

Worst in that you couldn't react to new information as quickly as the other players could, but he had the most time to formulate a plan for new situations and could observe the other players and the cards they picked.

His main idea was to pick cards from the other spades player to make sure that they couldn't win and steal all the cards that they took off of other players.

He would then shuffle his hand to make it extremely difficult to take the card back by observing the movements of his hand.

When Julie took her turn she managed to get a card that she needed, slotting it in her hand and then shuffling her deck, Noah caught on that it was a fake shuffle, but it didn't seem like anyone else did.

That's when he noticed that she had put her thumb and was looking at him with a wide smile and her tongue sticking to the right corner of her mouth.

`She looks so dumb right now` his careless inwards berating staying in his head as he looked back at the game.

It didn't seem like anyone was trying to cheat just yet, which was a good sign, maybe the table would be completely legitimate and he wouldn't have to worry about other people cheating.

Thinking like that would dull his senses, and cause him to miss any of the signs that his cards were being read.

`The temperature's still fine, there isn't a breeze and I don't feel unnaturally cold or wet so there still isn't an elemental about` thoughts like this were going through his head every second of play.

If he'd known that doing this would be this stressful he wouldn't have started the game, but since he was here for the pay out he could put up with the headache that would inevitably start up soon.

Several of the other player then had their turns picking cards off of each other, Noah had lost his only heart card that way `what a lucky score, I just hope that her luck doesn't continue on`.

If that luck gave her momentum this game could be incredibly one sided, but there was little that he could do since she didn't have his suite so picking up her winning cards would do nothing.

Then play came to the other spades player.

Noah's eyes narrowed to only focus on him, the aura he gave off once more scaring Julie out of her wits, her shaking audible to all who were playing the game, making a few of the players look confusedly at the poor girl.

"I see that you know a thing or two about intimidation" the elf too was recoiling back a little bit at the determined stare down he was receiving, his eyes starting to veer away from making contact with Noah's.

"Intimidation? I would never try anything like that, I'm merely watching the cards" he gave the friendliest smile he could muster while not looking fake.

This just came off as creepy, the elf reacted with disgust, scrunching his nose up and lowering his eyebrows as if looking at what an animal leaves behind after a few hours from eating something rotten.

Still the elf refrained from taking any cards out of Noah's hand and instead focused on Julie, receiving no card in return `alright, no to keep track of the card when she shuffles`.

As if on command from his brain Julie started to shuffle her cards once more, this time for real throwing Noah a little bit off on where the card the elf had picked was, but he thought he had an idea of its location.

Now it was his turn to play, but since there was little information to go off of he had to blindly pick this time, choosing to follow his plan of harassing the other spades player he plucked a card from his hand.

A heart showed itself to Noah and he hastily put it back in a different position to where he had picked it up from, hoping to throw off the heart players in the case that the elf didn't shuffle his cards.

He did though, and Noah was content that the hearts players would have a harder time finding it, making his job in winning easier, or so he hoped, it all would be decided by the cards after all.

A few more rounds passed by, Julie had no new cards added to her hand and Noah only had an extra spade, but that was still better than the elves who had all (apart from one) failed to add cards to their collections.

The one who had gained a card was the elf that had gotten so angry with him before, he still seemed to be angry at Noah, even after so much time spent together in peace.

*Sigh* he sighed about as loud as he could as he took his next turn, looking at the elves ears and probing his hand around, the movements that had been described had proven to be incredibly hard to see.

*Twitch* then he saw it, faintly but certainly, a movement in the elf's ears which meant that he had touched something that the elf didn't want him to.

He pulled the card with haste, but not quick to the point of being mistaken for him being rushed, it was a more methodical pull than that, with the pull and turn of the card towards him being done in a single motion.

It was the 3 of spades, something that he already had, but he only needed a full suite of 10, it was allowed to have similar cards, as long as you made it to 10 cards of the same suite you would win.

Instead of shuffling, he pushed all his cards into one pile and held them like that, a fool proof strategy to win, and counteract any cheating that could go on.

`Why didn't I think of this earlier, wait, they'll just peek at my cards while picking` he slapped himself on the face for not seeing this very obvious choice that the cheater could take.

Julie showed concern for his wellbeing but he just waved her off, he was merely resetting his brain after that utter brain fart that he had just undergone.

Still he was in the running to win now with 5 spades he was already halfway there to having a full set of 10, his grin was widening which he quickly had to hide behind his hand until he could control his mouth again.

That was probably a dead giveaway that he was close to winning but it didn't matter since the only one who could do anything about it seemed about as spineless as an invertebrate, not trying to challenge Noah at all, seemingly scared off by his appearance.

`Man if only people back home were this scared of me` he started to daydream about being the boss of one of the gangs that had bloodied him many years ago.

"Noah, Noah" Julie snapped him back to his senses as his turn came around once more.

This time, instead of focusing on the same elf that he had bullied for the past few rounds he decided on another who he had noticed shooting glances at him every so often.

He took this to be a sign that she had a card that he needed and so started doing the same eye and hand movements that he had employed against the other elf and managed to find the 5 of spades.

"Man I am on a roll today" he couldn't help but brag, the winner inside of him not allowing for a silent victory.

He now had 6 of 10 cards that he needed, those odds were the kind that could only be beaten by someone getting incredibly lucky multiple times in a row, he didn't even bother to hid his smile this time, he just felt too good about his assured victory to care anymore.

The elves had been sat there with dejected looks on their faces for a while now, `how could this uncouth barbarian of a man come waltzing in like he owns the place win against us`.

Thoughts like these were running through many of their minds as they all gazed with hatred at the smiling middle aged man in front and to the side of them.

"We play one more hand, if he wins we give it up and go onto a spiked one v one" the male elves started using their magic to speak telepathically to one another, making sure not to make it obvious to the magically adept at the table.

"Sounds good, who wants to spike and who wants to play"

"I'll play" the elf who had built up a specific hatred towards Noah practically jumped at the chance to play him in a rigged game.

All the while Noah was sat happily in his seat, humming the time between turns away with a cheery tone, frustrating the other players to no end, but in his mind that gave him an advantage.

Nothing changed from the last turn with 2 cards exchanging hands in total until it came to Noah's turn once more.

His tactic had been working for him so far so why fix something that isn't broken? He did the exact same thing this time as well, going for the same person that he did last time and receiving the same result.

"I concede"

"I do too"

"I give up"

"Me too"

All the original players gave up, throwing their cards onto the table as they did so making playing any further quite difficult, so the other 2 elves and Julie followed suit conceding the game to Noah.

His face had a look of sheer confusion on it, something he hadn't shown to others since coming to the casino, although it hadn't been that long.

But he was happy to take home the seven hundred chip pot.

`Why does it feel like this isn't actually that much` while he posed himself this question the elf quadruplet had begun to amass a large amount of chips.

"Hey, human what say you and I do a little one on one, for all this" Noah's attention was directed towards a bag that seemed to be full to the brim of chips.

"But I don't have nearly that much to bet with" in truth he just didn't want to play with his entire fortune on the line.

"That's okay, we have plenty more, plus this would barely buy you anything at the market, its like a drop in the ocean for us" the look on his face showed that he wasn't lying.

"So what'll it be?"

Noah pondered for a few seconds, "I'll go... all in" his face was filled with determination while the elf just smiled.