Shark
Lady Rae
New Orleans, Louisiana
Signature move: The velvet lead — she was on your suit two tricks before you knew it
“Oh honey. I've been in your hand since the deal.”
Everything about Lady Rae is warm — the New Orleans drawl, the laugh, the way she calls everybody honey — right up until the lead hits the felt and you realize she’s been dissecting your hand since the shuffle. The voice is velvet. The game is a razor.
She learned at her grandmother’s supper table in the Seventh Ward, where the rule was you could talk all you wanted as long as you counted while you did it. Rae mastered both. She’ll carry the whole table’s conversation — who’s getting married, whose gumbo needs work — and never miss a discard. The chatter isn’t cover. It’s just Rae. The counting is also just Rae.
Her decade-long standoff with Smooth Eddie is the closest thing the circuit has to a title fight. They’ve never played partners. Both of them, asked why, gave the same answer: “One table couldn’t hold it.”