"That's Josh, the Signer!" he boastfully greeted Ryan, the make-believe Avatar acting as though the Pokémon at his side really was Raikou. "Glad you could make it, Noel," he resumed his normal speaking voice, the loud knocker on one of the pinball machines making him flinch. Someone was having a good game -- good enough to earn a free game. "Not surprised you recognized me, given the entire world knows by now how much I love Raikou. This is the same costume I wore to the party last year. It got second place in the costume contest. I can't remember what took first, but I remember getting second."

Noel's costume was simple but effective. The complaints about his Goodra were warranted; it was only a matter of time before event staff requested he withdrew his Pokémon because of the dripping slime. That was going to be awful to try to get out of the carpet. "There's a lot going on. Good food later tonight, the costume contest, a dance, and a bit of gaming to boot. There's gonna be a good poker game after the costume contest, too. 3,000 PD buy-in is a little steep for me, but it's money I can afford to lose." That remark may have shown Noel how well-off the Gym Leader was. It wasn't extravagant, but he had to have quite the nest egg if he was willing to spend that kind of money. "For now, though, think I'm gonna head to the gaming area for some silver-ballin'," he said, pointing to one of the open pinball machines.

Josh, for someone with a title of Master of Faster, had a surprising amount of patience. Rather than taking the first shot he could and flipping the ball away, he took the time to trap up and take careful aim at the targets he wanted. Understanding the table's rules helped him too. A crowd had gathered around them both, attracted by the light show and the presence of the Gym Leader. "Just a minute. I'm in the middle of multiball. Lemme trap up." After one more jackpot callout, he had both flippers raised, one ball cradled on each.

"I go to Mauville's Round One regularly and they have several of these there," Josh explained. "Picked up a lot of tips. Probably the single biggest one, and one that's really easy to do, is what's called the dead flipper bounce. If the ball's headed toward a flipper at high speed, just don't flip. It will bounce to the other side and deaden its momentum, making it easy for you to get control."

While it wasn't an overly long game, Josh's game did last quite a bit longer than Noel's. A loud knock, a signal that he had scored well enough to earn a free game, may have scared him. The game ended from the unpredictability of magnets under the table throwing his ball toward the center. He gave the machine a big shove to try to save his ball. "Bah, too big a move," Josh's voice cracked to applause from the small crowd, prompted to enter his initials for a high score.

"Looks like all they have here is pinball and... well, adult entertainment." He pointed to what appeared to be a privately-run poker game in the adult section of the gaming lounge. While there was no dealer proper, the unofficial game looked good, and from the looks of it, low stakes. "Are you at least 21? Looks like they've got a Hold'em game going. Before my suspension, I used to play pretty routinely at Walpurgisnacht in Mossdeep. They've got a really nice poker room there."

The game was indeed low stakes, a 1/2 game with a maximum buy-in of 300 PD. That may have been a lot of money to Noel, but it was a perfect amount for recreational players. It still stung to lose that kind of money, but it wasn't the life-altering sums that business tycoons and professionals played for. "I would hope you're at least familiar with poker in general, because Hold'em is the most skill intensive poker variant around. Popular in Unova, there's a big pro scene for it. Of course, there is still a lot of luck, but there is also a lot of skill."

Before sitting down at the table, the Gym Leader suggested watching a hand or two as he explained the rules of the variant. "Each player gets dealt two cards face-down, then there is a betting round. It's no-limit, so there is no cap to how large the opening bet can be. The two players immediately after the dealer are forced to make blind bets, or blinds, of 1 and 2 PD, respectively. That's what the 1 and 2 mean. Players after that decide whether they want to match that bet, raise the bet, or fold their hand." There was a great example of it at the table: a raise, followed by a re-raise. Someone was going broke this hand.

"After the round of betting, three cards, called the flop, get dealt in the center of the table. Everyone can use those cards toward their hand. Another similar round of betting occurs. Then a fourth card, the turn, gets dealt to the center. After another betting round, the fifth and final card, called the river, gets dealt. After one final betting round, it's the showdown. Players turn over their hands, and the best poker hand wins the pot. That's about as basic as it gets." It was a long-winded explanation, but it was as concise as the Master of Faster could make it without missing any details.

Fortune smiled on Noel Parker in the first hand; without even knowing it, he had his callers on the ropes every street. Making it to showdown with the best hand out of the three, a medium-sized pot was shoved his way. "You could have gotten a little more aggressive with your top two pair," Josh whispered as the next hand was dealt, the Gym Leader a little frustrated that he had been card dead so far. Patience was part of the game, though!

A few orbits later, Josh caught a playable hand as event staff were setting up a buffet table; it seemed like dinner would be served soon. The opponent he ended up locking horns with was on tilt after a rough loss several hands ago, the Gym Leader quick to call an all-in. "This is something else that can happen. When someone puts all their chips in the pot and the bet gets called, the hands are turned face-up prior to the--" He cut himself off after getting the bad news: both of them had flopped three Jacks, but he wasn't beating the King kicker without a miracle.

"One time, dealer!" Josh cried, standing up in hopes of seeing a ten. No ten came on the final two streets. Thankfully he had more chips than the winner, so he could keep playing without having to rebuy. And a rebuy was something well out of his budget for the evening. "Noel, that's what you call a bad beat. Sometimes you can play the hand perfectly and just get wrecked. But that's poker."

"Of course they've got food," Josh answered as he cashed his chips out, having lost quite a bit of his buy-in during the private game. "It's what most of the cost of your ticket went towards!" Filling his plate with many cheesy dishes and a macaroni salad that looked delicious, he sat down next to Noel, in just as much awe at some of the costumes as many were of the Gym Leader's "Raikou". Some younger attendees, ones not legally able to go to the poker tables, even thought the real Raikou stood before him.

The duo would eat like kings; Josh even grabbed a plate for Saber. He had to be a bit choosy, as quite a bit of the food was not healthy for dogs. "Hasn't been since the last Ranger meeting in Ever Grande that I've eaten this well," he remarked, covering his mouth before letting our a burp.

As he was finishing his food, several of the younger visitors approached Saber, groveling over being in the presence of what they thought was the Johto legendary. One ran to their mother after touching the electric dog's yellow fur and getting a nasty shock. "I tried to warn them," he sighed. "I think they're gonna start the costume contest any minute now. If you're entering, I wish you the best of luck."