One for the Poker Fans, One for the Life Fans...
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
This should please the poker fans, but it's not really about poker. I'm going to use some poker terminology, but for the average reader, I'm going to give a brief explanation.
1) Poker is a game of percentages. No matter how far ahead you are in a hand, there is almost always a chance you will lose.
2) Often times losing happens as a result of "getting two-outered," meaning that your opponent only has two outs - two cards left in the deck that will help him or he - and he or she hits it.
3) One of the keys to poker is to "get your money in good" or "get your money in with the best of it." This means that you want to wager all of your money when you have a mathematical advantage against your opponent (see #2).
4) Losing a hand after having a mathematical advantage, possibly to a two-outer, is often times referred to as a "bad beat."
5) "Bad beats" are the second most dreaded thing in poker.
6) The first most dreaded thing in all of poker is a bad beat story.
This is a life bad beat story...and it even involves a couple of pro poker players.
Last night I went out with a few good friends, a few professional poker players, and some who are both. We sat around a table, drank, and bantered, so, for all intents and purposes we were playing a game. It was the game...the game of....the game of life. What we're gonna do though, is we're going to trick it out. Metaphor style. I guess since I explained poker to the normal people, I should explain a metaphor to the poker illiterates...
met·a·phor
[met-uh-fawr, -fer] –noun
I'm seeing a lot of blank looks. Even with the definition. So, I'm going to spell it out for you. It's a poker game, but it's also about what guys do in bars - try to score chicks. If last night's final table were to be televised, with hole cams and all that jazz, it would have gone down like this:
Seat 1 - Rif - my college roommate.
Not good at picking up chicks. Worse at poker. Oblivious to both.
Strengths: Drunk driving, cockblocking
Seat 2 - Joseph Matthew Sebok - professional poker player.
Excellent with the ladies. Excellent at poker. Completely aware of both.
Strengths: Bankroll, cockblocking you without you knowing or caring
(Like a sniper who picks you off with happy-bullets)
Seat 3 - Scott Huff - former professional poker (writer).
Has a girlfriend. Dead from the waist down, and when she's in town, also from the neck up.
Strengths: "Hot Chicks" aren't required for a good time., clutch in the pocket
Seat 4 - Jeff Madsen - rookie professional poker player.**
**Not much experience with him. Seems amiable. Laughs at my jokes, which is important.
Strengths: Unknown (but keep reading, maybe you'll find out).
Seat 5 - Joe Stapleton - professional blog writer.
Perpetually single. Head on a swivel. Wants someone to cuddle with on Sunday nights, but settles for one-nighters.
Strengths: Balls, wit, high credit limit
N.B. - Wit can sometimes be a major weakness depending on her intelligence level.
The Hole Cards:
Rif -
The "Manhattan" Card - Rif finds a way to mention the fact that he's from Manhattan with little or no prompting. For some reason, this actually works sometimes.
The "Me Too" Card - Anything any girl has ever done or ever mentions for any reason, Rif finds a way to work himself into (see use below).
Sebok -
The "Bored" Card - No girls in the bar over a 9.5, so Sebok's attention is fleeting at best.
The "Text" Card - Sebok's already texting to god-knows-how-much strange already. Again, no attention being paid to the game at hand tonight.
Huff -
The "Girlfriend" Card - "Seriously, guys. I have a girlfriend."
The "Broken Wingman" Card - "Go for it, dude. You can do it. I am not allowed to talk to a girl for any reason, even to help you, but you can do it, brah!
Joe Stapleton -
The "Hypocracy" Card - Bags on Huff, but behavior dictates a desire for a woman to jar his balls.
The "Balls to the Walls" Card - Honestly, it's about love of the game for this guy. Rejection or success matter little to him.
Jeff Madsen -
Hole Cards Unknown - He's young, and he's new. Who knows what this guy is holding?
So here's how the pre-flop action goes down:
Huff folds before he even gets the second card. He tries to get a refund for the tournament, but Jeffrey Pollack has him ejected.
I wasn't sure what we were in for. I was actually ok to just spend a night out with the guys, and didn't necessarily feel the need to try to pick up on chicks. Still, I already decided I was feeling good though, and I like the cards I have in front of me. I'd call an all-in for sure.
I telegraph this, by dumping $5 into the jukebox, thereby playing 22 songs in a row - carefully calculating their order by how drunk I think people will be by the time they play.
I then position myself in the booth in such a way that I could still chat it up if any femininas end up occupuying the table next door.
Rif limps. Madsen's game. And Sebok hasn't looked up from his text messages in a while, and doesn't seem to want to be in the action at all, but he's in the big blind, so he somehow ends up in the hand.
The Flop:
Lo and behold, three blondes walk in with a couple of jabronis. They're all pretty decent. Huff eventually postulates that one of them could have been an ex-Playmate**, and the guys are all clearly rich screenwriters. I start the action with a pot-sized bet by leaning over to tell the girls that DJ Joe is in the house, and to make sure they let me know if they enjoy my selections. Come On Feel The Noise, by Quiet Riot was playing at the time, and I figured I was about to take the pot down right there.
**Dear Alexandra -- Scott said no such thing. I hadn't used him in the story for a while, so I invented that bit for him to say. He loves you very much. I don't think he even noticed there were other girls in the bar. If he did, he certainly didn't make eye contact with any of them. Please let him leave the house again soon.
However, after much deliberation, Rif calls! He must really love the looks of his "Me Too" Card with conversations like this:
Blondie: I'm from Minnesota.
Rif: Oh yeah? I once saw a hockey game and one of the players was from Minnesota!
Moments later, Madsen is brought into the mix when Blondie tells him he looks like a younger, smaller version of her little brother. I gotta give the kid credit. Most people would have folded right there, but the kid hung in there, even though he was drawing pretty thin.
Sebok continued on with the hand in pretty much the only way he could have: two girls got right up in his face and gave him all the attention he needed. It didn't last long though, which brings us to...
The Turn:
No longer receiving double the pleasure, Sebok immediately checks out. I think he was trading stocks on that phone or something. Three players remain.
Blondie has since pulled me aside several times to tell me "I like you," and "You better dance with me later."
Rif, in an uncharacterstic move, realizes it's not happening and actually decides he's not going to bring me down with him. He moves on to her friends.
Two players remain.
Madsen suffers more "brother" comments, but refuses to give up. He calls for time.
Assuming he's about to fold, during "Er' body in the Club Gettin' Tipsy" I decide to kick back and take it easy. Play it cool. She's off dancing with her friends now, and I don't want to be the guy who's all up in her shit. It's about that time in the night when I just want to land a phone number. Nothing more. But I'm not going to chase it. I'm going to let her come to me.
For an unknown reason, Madsen stays in the hand. Unlike me, he's chasing something. Honestly, I don't even realize it at the time, because I'm not worried at all. I've got my money in with by far the best of it right now.
The River:
I stand up from my chair. I take a second to bask in my victory, and as I prepare to collect my winnings, I look up and see Jeff Madsen dart across the room, grab Blondie, put his hand behind her head and lay a big, fat, wet one right on her.
Meanwhile, I have flashbacks to this summer's WSOP, in which there was one tournament where Jeff Madsen got his money in, virtually drawing dead. Completely dominated, upon seeing his dire position, Madsen had only this to say:
"I have outs."
Boy, did he ever.
Now, all player-hating aside, I will say that, at first, she did not seem to be pleased with this situation, but eventually she just rolled with it.
That was it though. My hands were tied. He had made out with her. There was no where else for me to go without looking like a total douche.
What was I going to do?
"I know you just made out with my friend and everything but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to give me your number or maybe just to make out some more. You know. Like, with someone else."
There were no cards left to come. I had been rivered.
Typically, I'm pretty hard on myself about these things, but the whole situation made me realize this:
You can get two-outered in life.
No matter how much of an edge you've got,
no matter how much of a sure thing it is,
you can still get unlucky.
In the end, I have no hard feelings toward the kid. It was just a drunken night out. Sure, judging from the fact that we whispered Journey lyrics into each others' ears, she was probably my soulmate, but whatevs. That's what happens when you play the game. It's a tough pill to swallow. It was like losing with quads to a straight flush.
You think to yourself, "Alright, I got really unlucky. Not my bad. But DAMN, when am I ever going to get QUADS again??"
I had this attitude at first. When am I ever going to be in a bar again, and run into a drunken blonde with a big ass who' isn't too bright, is a horrible dancer, and is really into The Barenaked Ladies? When am I going to get my quads again??
And then I said to myself: "Self, you live in LOS ANGELES. The answer is: tonight."
Epilogue:
So I posted this ad on Craig's List's personals:
"Barenaked Ladies fan seeking Quads."
I've gotten a ton of pictures so far! Some of them don't appear to be the best typers, but most of them love the Barenaked Ladies! Some of them are even actually pretty cute. I'm waiting to get some body shots, because for some reason, in every single picture, they're all sitting down...
1) Poker is a game of percentages. No matter how far ahead you are in a hand, there is almost always a chance you will lose.
2) Often times losing happens as a result of "getting two-outered," meaning that your opponent only has two outs - two cards left in the deck that will help him or he - and he or she hits it.
3) One of the keys to poker is to "get your money in good" or "get your money in with the best of it." This means that you want to wager all of your money when you have a mathematical advantage against your opponent (see #2).
4) Losing a hand after having a mathematical advantage, possibly to a two-outer, is often times referred to as a "bad beat."
5) "Bad beats" are the second most dreaded thing in poker.
6) The first most dreaded thing in all of poker is a bad beat story.
This is a life bad beat story...and it even involves a couple of pro poker players.
Last night I went out with a few good friends, a few professional poker players, and some who are both. We sat around a table, drank, and bantered, so, for all intents and purposes we were playing a game. It was the game...the game of....the game of life. What we're gonna do though, is we're going to trick it out. Metaphor style. I guess since I explained poker to the normal people, I should explain a metaphor to the poker illiterates...
met·a·phor
[met-uh-fawr, -fer] –noun | 1. | a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance |
I'm seeing a lot of blank looks. Even with the definition. So, I'm going to spell it out for you. It's a poker game, but it's also about what guys do in bars - try to score chicks. If last night's final table were to be televised, with hole cams and all that jazz, it would have gone down like this:
Seat 1 - Rif - my college roommate.
Not good at picking up chicks. Worse at poker. Oblivious to both.
Strengths: Drunk driving, cockblocking
Seat 2 - Joseph Matthew Sebok - professional poker player.
Excellent with the ladies. Excellent at poker. Completely aware of both.
Strengths: Bankroll, cockblocking you without you knowing or caring
(Like a sniper who picks you off with happy-bullets)
Seat 3 - Scott Huff - former professional poker (writer).
Has a girlfriend. Dead from the waist down, and when she's in town, also from the neck up.
Strengths: "Hot Chicks" aren't required for a good time., clutch in the pocket
Seat 4 - Jeff Madsen - rookie professional poker player.**
**Not much experience with him. Seems amiable. Laughs at my jokes, which is important.
Strengths: Unknown (but keep reading, maybe you'll find out).
Seat 5 - Joe Stapleton - professional blog writer.
Perpetually single. Head on a swivel. Wants someone to cuddle with on Sunday nights, but settles for one-nighters.
Strengths: Balls, wit, high credit limit
N.B. - Wit can sometimes be a major weakness depending on her intelligence level.
The Hole Cards:
Rif -
The "Manhattan" Card - Rif finds a way to mention the fact that he's from Manhattan with little or no prompting. For some reason, this actually works sometimes.
The "Me Too" Card - Anything any girl has ever done or ever mentions for any reason, Rif finds a way to work himself into (see use below).
Sebok -
The "Bored" Card - No girls in the bar over a 9.5, so Sebok's attention is fleeting at best.
The "Text" Card - Sebok's already texting to god-knows-how-much strange already. Again, no attention being paid to the game at hand tonight.
Huff -
The "Girlfriend" Card - "Seriously, guys. I have a girlfriend."
The "Broken Wingman" Card - "Go for it, dude. You can do it. I am not allowed to talk to a girl for any reason, even to help you, but you can do it, brah!
Joe Stapleton -
The "Hypocracy" Card - Bags on Huff, but behavior dictates a desire for a woman to jar his balls.
The "Balls to the Walls" Card - Honestly, it's about love of the game for this guy. Rejection or success matter little to him.
Jeff Madsen -
Hole Cards Unknown - He's young, and he's new. Who knows what this guy is holding?
So here's how the pre-flop action goes down:
Huff folds before he even gets the second card. He tries to get a refund for the tournament, but Jeffrey Pollack has him ejected.
I wasn't sure what we were in for. I was actually ok to just spend a night out with the guys, and didn't necessarily feel the need to try to pick up on chicks. Still, I already decided I was feeling good though, and I like the cards I have in front of me. I'd call an all-in for sure.
I telegraph this, by dumping $5 into the jukebox, thereby playing 22 songs in a row - carefully calculating their order by how drunk I think people will be by the time they play.
I then position myself in the booth in such a way that I could still chat it up if any femininas end up occupuying the table next door.
Rif limps. Madsen's game. And Sebok hasn't looked up from his text messages in a while, and doesn't seem to want to be in the action at all, but he's in the big blind, so he somehow ends up in the hand.
The Flop:
Lo and behold, three blondes walk in with a couple of jabronis. They're all pretty decent. Huff eventually postulates that one of them could have been an ex-Playmate**, and the guys are all clearly rich screenwriters. I start the action with a pot-sized bet by leaning over to tell the girls that DJ Joe is in the house, and to make sure they let me know if they enjoy my selections. Come On Feel The Noise, by Quiet Riot was playing at the time, and I figured I was about to take the pot down right there.
**Dear Alexandra -- Scott said no such thing. I hadn't used him in the story for a while, so I invented that bit for him to say. He loves you very much. I don't think he even noticed there were other girls in the bar. If he did, he certainly didn't make eye contact with any of them. Please let him leave the house again soon.
However, after much deliberation, Rif calls! He must really love the looks of his "Me Too" Card with conversations like this:
Blondie: I'm from Minnesota.
Rif: Oh yeah? I once saw a hockey game and one of the players was from Minnesota!
Moments later, Madsen is brought into the mix when Blondie tells him he looks like a younger, smaller version of her little brother. I gotta give the kid credit. Most people would have folded right there, but the kid hung in there, even though he was drawing pretty thin.
Sebok continued on with the hand in pretty much the only way he could have: two girls got right up in his face and gave him all the attention he needed. It didn't last long though, which brings us to...
The Turn:
No longer receiving double the pleasure, Sebok immediately checks out. I think he was trading stocks on that phone or something. Three players remain.
Blondie has since pulled me aside several times to tell me "I like you," and "You better dance with me later."
Rif, in an uncharacterstic move, realizes it's not happening and actually decides he's not going to bring me down with him. He moves on to her friends.
Two players remain.
Madsen suffers more "brother" comments, but refuses to give up. He calls for time.
Assuming he's about to fold, during "Er' body in the Club Gettin' Tipsy" I decide to kick back and take it easy. Play it cool. She's off dancing with her friends now, and I don't want to be the guy who's all up in her shit. It's about that time in the night when I just want to land a phone number. Nothing more. But I'm not going to chase it. I'm going to let her come to me.
For an unknown reason, Madsen stays in the hand. Unlike me, he's chasing something. Honestly, I don't even realize it at the time, because I'm not worried at all. I've got my money in with by far the best of it right now.
The River:
I stand up from my chair. I take a second to bask in my victory, and as I prepare to collect my winnings, I look up and see Jeff Madsen dart across the room, grab Blondie, put his hand behind her head and lay a big, fat, wet one right on her.
Meanwhile, I have flashbacks to this summer's WSOP, in which there was one tournament where Jeff Madsen got his money in, virtually drawing dead. Completely dominated, upon seeing his dire position, Madsen had only this to say:
"I have outs."
Boy, did he ever.
Now, all player-hating aside, I will say that, at first, she did not seem to be pleased with this situation, but eventually she just rolled with it.
That was it though. My hands were tied. He had made out with her. There was no where else for me to go without looking like a total douche.
What was I going to do?
"I know you just made out with my friend and everything but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to give me your number or maybe just to make out some more. You know. Like, with someone else."
There were no cards left to come. I had been rivered.
Typically, I'm pretty hard on myself about these things, but the whole situation made me realize this:
You can get two-outered in life.
No matter how much of an edge you've got,
no matter how much of a sure thing it is,
you can still get unlucky.
In the end, I have no hard feelings toward the kid. It was just a drunken night out. Sure, judging from the fact that we whispered Journey lyrics into each others' ears, she was probably my soulmate, but whatevs. That's what happens when you play the game. It's a tough pill to swallow. It was like losing with quads to a straight flush.
You think to yourself, "Alright, I got really unlucky. Not my bad. But DAMN, when am I ever going to get QUADS again??"
I had this attitude at first. When am I ever going to be in a bar again, and run into a drunken blonde with a big ass who' isn't too bright, is a horrible dancer, and is really into The Barenaked Ladies? When am I going to get my quads again??
And then I said to myself: "Self, you live in LOS ANGELES. The answer is: tonight."
Epilogue:
So I posted this ad on Craig's List's personals:
"Barenaked Ladies fan seeking Quads."
I've gotten a ton of pictures so far! Some of them don't appear to be the best typers, but most of them love the Barenaked Ladies! Some of them are even actually pretty cute. I'm waiting to get some body shots, because for some reason, in every single picture, they're all sitting down...
posted by Joe | 2:10 PM
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1 comments
