“After one and a half cocktails, finding the appropriate response is a bit of a challenge. I finally say, 'Thank you for inviting me,' and leave the less desirable 'Want to play strip poker?' in the unscrupulous part of my brain where it belongs.”

“Who are you? Rabbit and Souris call you ‘Alice,’ me and Dee call you ‘Faye.’ I just didn’t know if ‘Alice’ was your poker-playing, Southern Hemisphere name or what. Hey, I’m just trying to fit in here. If I should be introducing myself as ‘Clark,’ I want to know about it sooner rather than later so I don’t embarrass myself.”

“Alice, I am the game, and trust me: you don’t want to play me.”

“As you know, the International Poker Tour, by its own admission, knows very little about poker games, one of which ended tragically last week when an IPT-sanctioned tournament aboard a yacht in Australia accidentally used tarot cards instead of playing cards. That’s right, it’s true! Apparently no one noticed until someone laid down a full house and the dealer died.”

“My help—it’s not a light switch you can turn on and off. My help starts right now, and after this point you don’t get to tell me that you don’t want it anymore. Understand? You had a chance to walk away, Alice, and you didn’t take it. Now it’s time to play the game.”

“Wait, and you had to ask him if Faye’s in danger? IF? Okay, first of all, I’m just going to admit that I didn’t know Japan had a Mafia, but I also didn’t know they got a Disney World. If someone gets an invitation from the Mafia, I’d say there’s potential for a bit of danger, wouldn’t you? I mean, am I the only one here who saw Goodfellas?”

“I like it because when people use a lot of poker lingo, it usually means they’ve been playing the game for a while. Which is why I immediately avoid those people.”