The Poker Report
2-25-03
"Playing Thief To Sucker Since 2001"
Cyber-Copy
Earlier this week the owner of Cyber-Copy accused me of stealing a
woman's purse. I told him I didn't steal a woman's purse. He asked me if I
would bring my bag into the store, so he could see for himself. I've been
getting my mail at Cyber-Copy for a year. I asked him if he had lost his mind.
He said he just wanted to see my bag. I told him if I had switched bags I would
know. The lady would have gotten the better end of the deal, since I had my
laptop with me. Just bring in the bag, he said, so he could see for himself.
Getting Started
Wendy shows first with Donahue. Donahue seems happy, which is
ironic, when viewed by the light of what would happen later. Wendy brings nine
homemade brownies with her, which are very good, and she tells us each to only
have one until everyone has arrived. They're really very good brownies, and
it's hard have only one of them. John Stassen shows up next, seven on the dot,
eager for his first night of play. Stassen has a baby and teaches school in
Menlo Park to developmentally disabled children so none of us see him enough.
Ben shows up next, followed by Abby who brings vegetables and hummus instead of
beer and then promptly asks if she can have a beer. At 7:21 Jensen rounds out
the table. "Cooney's not coming," he tells us. "I was over at his
apartment. He was eating dinner with Molly. I saw the whole thing."
We start with Hold'em and Omaha. Donahue says he's an Omaha
genius. Donahue is one of my favorite people in the whole world. Later in the
evening Wendy will reach across his place and push his lone black chip and ask
if that is all he has left, just a dollar. We will all laugh, and this will
remind us of the time Jon Berry said he was taught how to play poker by old men
in a basement when he was ten-years old and I had said that wasn't poker they
were teaching him.
But before that, before Donahue loses everything and something
happens to his face, something like an x-ray flashing demonic features across
his landscape, I go on a losing streak. It started when I chased a full house
with two aces, two kings, and two twos. We were in Omaha and I had two chances
to pull six cards from 45 possibilities and all of the chips in the pot were
blue, which means something. But I didn't draw my card and my two pair lost to
Stassen's high straight. And I would lose again to Stassen, when his king of
spades ambushed my six for no good reason except spite and meanness and a cold
calculating cruelty, the mind of the hunter that's already been fed but can't
stop hunting such is his insatiable thirst. I lose so much that I stagger to my
feet, knocking over Abby's Boonts Amber, beer spilling down my shirt and jeans
and pooling at our feet below the table. I wash in the bathroom, change
clothes, my drenched clothing left in it's own wrinkled mass. I stare into my
small shower stall which has no curtain, the discolored paint there. I take a
good look in the mirror and ask myself if I can continue this way, pushing my
fingers through my hair. I hear laughing from the other room. New pants new
shirt, a new beer, I sit back down, ready to play.
While I was so busy losing I hadn't noticed Donahue switching into
tilt, but saw it now. I thought about trying to help him, but I had my own
money to win back. He had lost any ability to fold. Mucked three cards on the
third round of Clue. Followed Omaha into Texas with no chance of highs or lows
but a prayer that someone would fold, like a soldier marching into war without
guns under the leadership of a man who has never been to war himself. Donahue
lost pot after pot, a victim of his own myth. He was up $35 for the year, the
big winner by far. Family members in faraway climbs like Vermont had been
calling to congratulate him on his smooth playing, his finely honed skills. He
was trying to live up to himself, and no-one can play against their own myth.
He was like Samson, without the hair, shaved bald, a hare-krishna dancing in an
airport, a shadow of someone he may never have been.
There were snaps. Donahue said things, then smiled to show he
didn't mean it. Then threatened to pee on my floor. I told him to take it easy,
it's only a game. We're all friends here. But let's face it, friends and poker,
different words with different spellings. He got burned bad in Scrotum holding
three tens against Abby's beneficient four aces. He got caught again and
squirelled his fingers deep in his pockets searching for green. He bought in
three times. He lost forty dollars. It might be the biggest loss ever. Not
counting one Sunday afternoon that we don't count anymore or ever talk about.
At the final count Ben was up for the first time in awhile. And
Abby, who had been steady all night, had Wendy's five dollars, the two butting
heads on a red chip catfight played in green felt. Stassen, who insisted all
along he didn't know what he was doing, was the big winner with twenty-five
large to ferry back to the South Bay. And Jensen finished even, even tempered,
even played. I'd say a good time was had by all, but good times and memories,
who am I to utter truths as universal as these?
Stephen Elliott
Editor
The Poker Report
**
Name Profession
Win/Loss
Win/Loss Year To Date
Steve, The Editor of The Poker Report
+$14
+$38
Ben, The Search Engine Consultant
+ $8 -
$14
Donahue, The Stanford Engineer
- $40
- $5
Jensen, The Rock&Roll Enthusiast
even
- $12
Wendy, The Information Architect
- $4
- $5
Stassen, The School Teacher
+ $25
+$25
Abby, The Grant Writer
+ $5
+$683,927
subscribe: poker@stephenelliott.com
unsubscribe: no_poker@stephenelliott.com
from the archives: 2-19-02, Sheila. Now considered one of the
great poker reports, this paean to passive aggression was mostly ignored at the
time http://www.stephenelliott.com/2-19-02.html
buy my book from Amazon. to-date my last novel is up for least sold
book ever. released in October of 2002, What It Means To Love You has been
little read and less often misunderstood. buy your copy and help my Amazon
rankings, which I check every day, without affect. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931561184/nowhere500com/002-9305668-4722434
if that doesn't convince you, read the article and excerpt in last
Sunday's Chicago Sun Times: http://www.suntimes.com/output/lifestyles/cst-nws-elliott16.html
"The greatest advantage in gambling lies in not playing at all."
- Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576)
http://www.stephenelliott.com