Playing a Hunch: A Poker Boy Collection

By Dean Wesley Smith

Poker Boy works as a superhero for Stan, the God of Poker.

Poker Boy's unique talents—a keen sense for danger and a remarkable ability to read people—allow him to help those in need. He also asks a lot of stupid questions.

But sometimes stupid questions lead to the only answer that will save the day.

In this collection, Poker Boy tackles some tasks that would stump any ordinary superhero.

He helps rescue another superhero from himself; helps a poker player learn that most important of skills—patience; discovers what's behind the bad poker playing of the Idiot Boy; travels to the Library of Atlantis to get the answer to a stupid question that demands an answer; and tempts fate by asking where the gods came from in the first place.

No ordinary superhero, Poker Boy saves the world one humorous story at a time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Jul 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393471615

Dean Wesley Smith

Dean Wesley Smith is the bestselling author of over ninety novels under many names. He has written books and comics for Marvel, DC Comics, and Dark Horse, as well as scripts for Hollywood. Over his career, he also worked as an editor and publisher for Pulphouse Publishing and Pocket Books. Currently, he writes thrillers and mysteries under one of his many pseudonyms.

Book preview

Playing a Hunch

Playing a Hunch

A Poker Boy Collection

Dean Wesley Smith

WMG Publishing, Inc.

Contents

Introduction

Leaking Away a Life

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

A Reason to Play a Hunch

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

The Rude Improbable Presumptive

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

The Library of Atlantis

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Gods Have History

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Newsletter sign-up

Also by Dean Wesley Smith

About the Author

Introduction

The superhero Poker Boy came into existence late one night in a poker tournament when a guy bet wild on a bad hand, lost (as the odds said he would) and then, when standing up, said, The poker gods weren’t with me tonight.

My first thought was, No god would help you win with that bone-headed of a play.

Then I realized that just maybe there was a god of poker.

And if there was a god of poker, there would be gods of everything else on the planet. And since these gods couldn’t be everywhere at once, they had to have superheroes working for them.

A few years earlier, I had a friend who was a writer in the then just blooming world of tournament poker. He liked to call himself Poker Boy, but he had died suddenly. So, as I was sitting there between hands in that late-night tournament, I knew that the superhero working for the god of poker would have to be called Poker Boy.

And the god of poker was named Stan.

Poker Boy had to have a girlfriend, who was a superhero in the area of hotel hospitality called Front Desk Girl.

And off I went.

I took what I considered the superpowers of regular professional poker players and ramped them up. Poker Boy could read anyone, he had a sense when something was going wrong. He was frighteningly good at hiding, and with math, but not the smartest when it came to real world things.

He loved people, liked to help people, and was so new in the superhero world, he was constantly asking questions. Often really stupid questions.

And with those questions and the team around him, he had managed to save the world numbers of times, including saving Lady Luck herself, the woman in charge of everything.

With each adventure, he learned and gained even more superpowers and a nifty office as well. And his team became known as the top team in superhero world, even though he really wasn’t in charge.

There are five stories included in this book. Five Poker Boy recent adventures, including the story Gods Have a History where Poker Boy asks a logical question and discovers where all the ancient gods came from. And why.

And by the way, Poker Boy’s world is so large, I have written many other stories about characters in his world. And sometimes he makes a guest appearance.

So, if interested, check out the Ghost of a Chance stories and novels, the Marble Grant stories, Sky Tate mysteries, and the Pahket Jones cat stories.

All of them started that night at a poker table.

The five stories in this volume have never been collected before, so I hope you enjoy the crazy world of Poker Boy as much as I do.

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Dean Wesley Smith

LasVegas, Nevada

Leaking Away a Life

A Poker Boy Story

Introduction

Poker Boy works as a superhero in the gambling side of the world. And he reports to Stan, the God of Poker.

Very bothered, Stan comes to Poker Boy with a problem. Very personal and unusual.

Another superhero working for Stan faces monster problems, and not the kind of problems that come from rescuing others.

This other superhero needs to be rescued from himself.

Sadly, we often all face our worst enemy every morning in the mirror, an enemy sometimes impossible to beat, even for a superhero.

Chapter One

I was in a really nice no-limit game at my home casino, the Spirit Winds Casino in the Oregon Coastal Mountain Range. The night was still young, five tourists were playing fast with a lot of extra money, and there was only one other pro on the table besides me and we were staying out of each other’s way just fine.

I had found heaven in a poker game.

And heaven was paying off nicely so far. After two hours I was five hundred up and considering how much the tourists were drinking, I hoped that number would get much, much higher before I had to leave.

My girlfriend, Patty Ledgerwood, aka Front Desk Girl, and I were building a new home on property I owned up in the mountains near the casino. I had teleported, or jumped as I liked to call it, from Vegas up here to check on the house and then had decided to just stay and play since Patty didn’t get off work until one in the morning from the MGM Grand Hotel front desk.

I had more money than I sometimes knew what to do with, since I won a lot and spent almost nothing. We had decided to build a custom home with every modern feature and everything we wanted. Patty had loved designing it.

I had saved the life of one of the best contractors in the world, a guy by the name of Bob Davis, by offering him a job building the house. So far the construction had taken just over two years, but it was almost done.

And spectacular didn’t begin to describe the home. Way beyond my class as a human being, that’s for sure, with all the glass, mahogany and stone, and the beautiful kitchen, to say nothing of the four modern bathrooms.

Patty absolutely loved the place, and she and Bob got along like old friends.

When Bob and his crew were done here, Patty and I were going to keep him on salary with a huge raise and have him