POKER HAIKU #13

I'll wear sunglasses--
Whenever I play poker
In the bright sunshine.

MARKET FORCES

What a commercial for pokerstars! Its amazing. What's going on? Everyone I know already plays, almost without exception, everyone. The sort of hands they set up to drag people to their site--who are they targeting? How many people do they hope to snag with that rotten mental bait?
I tell you that marketing works. Just look at the phrases "life insurance" and "health insurance". Nobody can insure your life or health. They can insure your car or house, but it sort of stops there. So what is life insurance, really--since it doesn't really insure anything?
Whatever it is, it shares its main component with poker. Risk assessment. But poker is more honest.

SHE HAD...

She had kings and I had jacks.
You know, I really have faith in humanity. I just walked outside and looked up and realized that even a thousand years ago people had all these complex star charts and planet charts that scientists today are still trying to figure out.
Poker is full of pain. And the sky is full of wonder.

POKER HAIKU #12

Like Juice Newton says--
Playing with the queen of hearts--
Isn't really smart.

Remember . . .

Remember in Silence of the Lambs when jodie foster was walking down the prison corridor, passing by the cells of markedly crazy people who were shouting, drooling, growling, and she finally gets to the end of the corridor -- and stands in front of the cell of the worst one of them all -- the most violent and deranged criminal in the world. So far the whole movie had been building up to this moment when we finally get to see what Hannibal Lecter is like. And what do we get? A normal looking man standing straight up with a pleasant face who looks her in the eyes and says with a soft voice, "good morning".

A-9

So you usually beat me, but tonight was different. Your A-9 just didn't hold up. Don't fool around with A-9. Its okay to just leave the table for a little while. Just be quiet when you do. Drama is for an audience at the theater. Poker is for men at the table.
And look, don't tell me you love me unless you mean it -- lips, tongue, vocal chords and brain-- in reverse order. I don't want to be picky-- I just want honesty -- anything else is a waste. I'm smart enough to have standards-- and old enough to have taste. I'm down with love through poker-- I'm just not up for that crap. I have my days and you have your days. So save your love for someone who'll take your money in other ways.
A-9 off... Give me a break.

POKER HAIKU #11

Walking past the clean,
Groomed calico in that yard --
I am no one's pet.

REAL EATERS

Last night someone told me pre--flop that my 5-3 offsuit was no good.
But it was, and I won the hand. I could beat him with a joker and a tarrot card if I had to.
A while back, William the refrigerator Perry was in a competitive eating contest, and he didn't do that well. People who follow the sport openly questioned why he was there -- and said that his presence mocked the event. "He's not a real eater!" one of them shouted.

TABLE PRESENCE

I go to a Saturday night game in Round Rock about once a month. Last time I was there, Jon the Baptist said I didn't have any table presence. That didn't make sense to me, since I am -- in fact -- renowned for my table presence -- it is sincerely legendary -- and my arrival in a poker room can be compared to an appearance of an exotic mythical creature -- kind of like a phoenix -- but with better card sense and a more articulate squawk. Oh well -- I was busy sending email or something, and whatever play I made during that hand was unlikely to make poker history anyway.
So, last night, I showed up at the game in a tuxedo, with an eyepatch and two ferrets -- Snowflake and Max. Max is chill. Snowflake is an albino. She's mean, too, like a good ferret should be, with little hot-pink eyes -- windows to hell.
I played one hand of no limit hold'em, won $37 with a set of jacks, and left -- ferrets, formal wear, and cash in tow.
Sometimes, the most effective display of power at the table is to minimize one's time at it.
By the way, regarding time and power, any good poker player must manage them effectively -- both are so dangerous -- in fact, time and power are talking roots of all evil. You can deduce that by noting that money is the root of all evil, time is money, money talks, and money is power. Thinking further, you can deduce that all evil must have its root in speech. I'll write about that later.

POKER HAIKU #10

My kings -- they were cracked.
This table's dirty red felt
Needs to be replaced.

POKER HAIKU #9

Big stack ecstasy --
All these chips in front of me --
Donkeys on my right.

BILLY AND MARIE

In news concerning things falling apart, centers not holding, and falcons not hearing falconers -- today a woman asked me what I did.
I told her I play poker.
She said no-- that I didn't understand -- what did I do for living?
Marie Antoinette never said let them eat cake -- but if she had said it, she wouldn't have said it out of spite, like a lot of historians lead people to believe. The truth is that when she was told that the people had no bread, she would have made the cake suggestion out of ignorance -- not out of meanness. She was so sheltered and out of touch that she actually believed the people had a choice between bread and cake and maybe other things, and since bread wasn't available, cake might be a viable option. She would have been making an attempt to solve a problem -- trying to be helpful.
And they cut her head off.

POLITICS MEETS POKER

I read that Ron Paul called poker a " microcosm of everything that is good and fair in America".
You know, I wrote myself in for President in 1992.
I did it again in 1996.
I'd risen above voting by 2000.
I wrote myself again again in 2004.
And I just may vote for Ron Paul this year.
Not because of principle--
but in spite of it.

POKER HAIKU #8

Motorcycling --
Through the central Texas night --
Cards without a cause.

POKER HAIKU #7

You're blinking, dear friend.
I see your eyes through your shades.
Chips in jeopardy.

NO LIMIT HOLD'EM

They were men, very serious men. They had lots of chips and yesterday they didn't play a hand for hours, overnight even, they didn’t care. They were serious. They were there for serious poker. Not out of fun, but out of need. The first thing one would do when he arrived was to take out his artificial eye and bounce it off the felt table. Then he would bite off the dealer's ear, spit it out and announce “I am a poker player. I’m here for serious poker.” When the other man sat down for heads-up, they commenced the handshake. The handshake took two hours. They clenched and grinned, trying to see whose handshake was the wyliest. Seeing who would break first -- and how. Once cards were in the air, strategies began. First, the big stack assumed a fetal position, cried and grunted for whiskey, and while the waitress got it, he throw a card-protector through an interior window muttering “nothing personal, you understand it’s poker.” Then he stood up and pissed on the table talking about how bad beats are bleeding him dry. “Damn,” the other replied, staring at 9-5 offsuit, "you're gonna have to lick that up." They maintained civility while opening each other’s shirt and gouging into flesh with broken wine glasses --piercing layers of yellow fat -- the fat that just last month had been in a vinyard. Then while making an important raise with their left hands, they would stab each other’s over-worked liver with their rights, and find that above the liver was the heart. So, they would clench each other’s heart, eyes locked to eye, grin locked to grin, and they would face off. Each maintaining normal, relaxed conversational tone, broken by the occasional spasm from the other's white-knuckled grip -- that tight heartgrip. As of this writing, neither player has folded.

Four hours on the lake yesterday and all I had to show for it is two little fish. So I took out the ten foot leather whip I keep in my tackle box, leaned over the edge of the boat, and gave the lake nine lashes. The lake was only due six or seven lashes, but I was particularly frustrated, so it got nine. Before the ancient Athenians did anything important, they's usually consult the oracle at Delphi. They didn't pray to Zeus like you might expect -- Zeus wasn't a benevolent guiding force for them -- Zeus was selfish. The central texas fishing forecast for tomorrow is better than it was yesterday, but the experience still leaves me wondering how much longer in life I can avoid that Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull -- and at what point my avoidance becomes as respected and noble as a virgin's honor.