GG Kralj

Ivana Kralj dealt cards in a Zagreb casino to pay for a law degree she finished and never used, and by graduation was earning more on the other side of the felt. Ten years on the European circuit have given her a shelf of trophies in a box and a poker face her mother calls the accountant look. She says the cube cannot bluff. The maths, she explains, is right there for anybody willing to do it, and she then sends it over on nothing, about twice an evening, and takes the pass with the same flat expression she took the pot with. She plays cash backgammon at the same clubs, for stakes she declines to discuss.