Page 106 of Niccolo

The one issue that gave me pause was my father.

Had Sofiabeen the one to plan his death?

I could overlook her attempts to killme.

Plotting to kill my brothers was less forgivable, but still within the realm of possibility.

But if she had planned my father’s murder, I would gladly strangle her myself.

However, I didn’t think she was the culprit.

The timeline didn’t sync up.

The match she’d won against the grandmaster – the one that had sealed her fate – had occurred six months before.

My father had died eight months ago.

I doubted she would have taken Fausto’s offer if it was still possible she could become the world champion.

If she had already been stripped of her title and forced out, though, that was another matter entirely…

But that didn’t happen until two months after my father’s death.

Now that I knew her name, I googled her to see if there was more to discover.

Oh my –wasthere.

After scrolling past everything about the scandal and her disgraced exit from the world of chess, several articles mentioned that she had become a professional poker player.

Oh HO…

This just keeps getting better and better!

I love chess, and I’m quite good at it…

But Iadorepoker.

One of my favorite things about it was getting inside my opponents’ heads and figuring out if they were bluffing.

Far more than chess, poker was the game most similar to being aconsigliere.

It was the psychological component:

You always had to figure out who was bluffing and whether you could beat them –

And if you couldn’t beat them, then you had to out-bluff them.

Therewasno more valuable skill for aconsigliere.

I found the official website for world poker tournaments and discovered that four months ago, Sofia had won fifth place in San Remo – to the tune of 47,000 euros.

I was guessing she’d made the leap to poker purely for money.

Unless she had some private fascination with the game, she’d probably picked it up in a matter of months.

If that were the case, then placing fifth amongst professionals who had been doing it for years – decades, even – was incredibly impressive.

A related search turned up a list of all past winners, including the events they had played in, as well as all future events for which they were registered.

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