Let the hunt begin!
I tracked each and every naive/drunk guy/girl I could find that night. Jesus that sounded a little creepy no? Never mind that.
The result of one night of effort ended at 6 AM where there were no more new people coming and going and only old addicts gambling at the jackpot machines were present.
I again went to the same cashing station that Emily worked, but she was not there. I asked the slutty girl instead and told me very rudely that she didn't know her, but that she was better on the bed than her.
I smiled and thanked her for the kind compliment and cash in only $50k of chips leaving me with $150k of chips on bigger ones that don't occupy too much space.
I tried to contact Emily but remembered that I didn't have a phone. It was burned to a tender crisp state with all the zapping incident. I decided to get to the small mall and bought the best spec phone yet. The ASUS ROG Gaming phone, it was $3.000 dollars but it was worth it. I could game a little while being on the move.
I also bought a new line and called my mom to tell that a friend let me borrow his phone for a few weeks. And then I sent a Whatsapp text to Emily telling her "Hey I don't saw you today at your chip station!" I didn't use emojis because I deemed that emojis are 21th-century cancer.
After I sent the text I was finished for the day and finally went to my suite to enjoy the view...only for 2 minutes before I fall asleep on the bed with all the clothes still on me.
I woke up with my alarm clock having rested 6 good hours and began my 3rd day I guess. Depends on how you look at it, for me the days end when I go to sleep. Today was the last day before I had before the tournament.
I already did the investigations, this time for free, and checked that the requisite for entering the tournament was $250k at the minimum with a jackpot of 2.5 Million, winner takes all. The 2nd Place gets a sponsor, and the 3rd some crappy thing of the casino.
I was $100k short of money, I could just keep playing at the intermediate poker table and maybe I could have a few thousands of dollars over the required, but I got greedy. I had my eyes on the 3rd floor of the casino, the advanced poker tables.
But first things first, I need to buy 3 more black hoodies, and a perfume to have on me. I went to the mall again and bought those hoodies, bought an expensive black sunglasses that looked the same as the cheap one, but whatever dress to impress I guess no? And bought one of the cheapest Rolex on the market, the Rolex Explorer at $6,550. And of course bought my favorite brand of perfume, Invictus by Paco Rabbane. All of this cost me around $10k.
I went back to my room, took a good shower with hydro-massage and dressed in all the good clothes that I just bought. I left the dirty clothes on the basket from the same day laundry, left the extra hoodies and went to my destination.
I had around $37k of paper money on me and $100k on chips on me. I didn't leave anything on the suite. I finally remembered that I have a special skill!
Going back to the topic, my objective of this day is to get +$100k of chips after the required chips. So $350k on chips in total.
I arrived a little nervous on the 3rd floor, but to my surprise, they were looking at me curiously. It seems that a gained a name this 2 days here that they at least know me and know that I play hard.
Never mock a strong enemy, it will only make you look dumber and annoying like a toddler taunting an adult. Anyway, this time I also ate at the free buffet, but the quality of the food here was better than the last floor. It was a very refreshing experience.
Oh, the minimum to participate on this floor is 100k, there are no casual players, and fewer playboys flaunting their money. On this floor, they play a hand with a jackpot as much as a new home. There isn't so much room to joke with this amount of money.
They were all professional, a couple of them were alluring woman using their body as a distraction and a very strong pheromone perfume. Anything is legal here except cheating. Some of them put drugs and give them to concentrated players and made them think slower or made them sleepy.
So on the surface, they were all smiling and laughing but if you have a keen eye they only drink from closed plastic bottles. And if they don't drink all the content in one go they discarded it automatically.
High rollers behave like this and have some special quirks. Some guy liked to bring his puddle around, someone liked to be on flip-flops, etc. Since they were high rollers, some rules don't apply to them.
I sat on the end of the table, they politely said hi to me. And I replied amiably. It a good thing to start developing relationships here. Most of the time, poker high rollers have connections with the underground, and that would be a good thing to have.
I started conservatively to watch them play, to learn from them. They were not my real competition. They tournament integrants were. 2 of them put their hands over the cards before even looking at them, only when is their first turn they would look at them and quickly hid them.
It was not something like secrecy, but I think something as a Kabbalah, a good luck thing. But I got better at looking at cards while the dealer was dealing them. Before each card dealt they paused a little bit between cards, I could see them for a fraction of second before they arrived at the customer.
Of course, this tactic has a blind spot of the first cart dealt, that's why I lose some games, and not even on purpose. If someone hid their cards and is the first person to be dealt with. I basically didn't know which cards they had. That's why I continuously learn about facial gestures and body language.
I stayed all night, learning, losing, winning, talking, laughing. After I reached my $350k goal I focused on learning and developing relationships. You wouldn't know how much info you could get for giving them $10k when they needed for the game.
I didn't care about that money, I needed information and connections. I made a couple of them. One was a white Texan guy that had connections with dealing with guns, he was Bruce. Another was a Chinese guy named Han, he had connections with exotic animals and drugs. The last one of importance was Jamie, was a white American dude, really regular guy, but he was connected with the precious stone market, he could put anything you have anonymously if you give him a big enough cut.
Of course, I used
Bruce
[Total lifespan: 65 years | Age: 35 | ??]
Han
[Total lifespan: 70 years | Age: 30 | ??]
Jamie
[Total lifespan: 85 years | Age: 29 | ??]
If you have money and reputation you could be a friend to anybody. Money is power, but power is not money. A good thing to have in mind.
After spending all day gambling I finally checked my phone, 3 missed calls from my mom and 2 WhatsApp messages of Emily. I checked the messages first because that was the quickest to answer and smiled when I read them.