What’s the point of making her a war vet?? Because that implies she got the combat chops to prevail against the serial killer.? This diminishes suspense as to the outcome because the antagonist is going up against her character strengths.? When he should be exploiting her character weaknesses.

A plot is supposed to be a conspiracy against the protagonist.? But from the git-go, this one seems to be a setup, a conspiracy against the antagonist.? The odds are not in his favor.? It seems to me he’s being played as a woeful foil more than a worthy foe.

And why does the antagonist have to be a serial killer?? If he must be a serial killer, then he must be one in the context of the poker games.? To wit, poker games are his stalking ground, where? he selects his victims. And this has to be established for the audience in the first Act in order to kick start the suspense.? Something like, over the years, all the winners of the particular poker contest have mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen or heard of again.

This could be her fate. So why would someone who wants to pursue a “safer vocation” ante up for a game that could get her killed?? Why is she playing poker anyway?

Wouldn’t it make more sense? if her combat experience has turned her into a risk junkie, someone who craves another fix — the adrenaline pump, the dopamine high, the serotonin release — that comes from dodging another bullet, evading another land mine,figuratively and literally?

Or if she was a? wounded ex-warrior.? She lost a leg in a landmine, or was? reduced to a paraplegic.? And/or is suffering from PTSD.

Whatever.? It seems to me that for this story to work there needs to be at least an implied psychological symmetry between the pathology in the antagonist and the character flaw in the protagonist. And I just don’t see it.

fwiw