“Listen, here’s the thing.? If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, you are the sucker.”
Poker, a game that separates the men from the boys. I got hooked on it sophomore year at Georgetown. With my regular crew of six or seven friends, we all matured as players during those weekly six- to 10-hour marathon sessions in Village B. I’ve been playing regularly for about two years now, pretty much ever since I saw the movie Rounders for the first time. In Dublin, It just so happens that the only poker club in town is located a block away from my flat. A mere coincidence? As Teddy KGB would say, “Nyet! Nyet!”
The game played here is Texas Hold ‘Em, the “Cadillac of Poker,” i.e. the game Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) plays Teddy KGB (John Malkovich) dirty in at the end of Rounders. Every night in the poker room of the Merrion Casino Club, the sounds of cards and chips moving on green felt is accompanied by much laughter and good times. They refer to me as the “Yank” here, a nickname I can only bear because they mean it in a friendly way. I try to explain to the Irish that I am a Philadelphian, a die-hard Phillies fan, and am insulted to have any part of the Yankees associated with me. I tell them to call me a “Phil,” but it has yet to catch on.?
The poker room at the Merrion is littered with regulars: men and women who play poker from 9 p.m.-8 a.m. every day and make their living on it. It gets a little scary around 6 or 7 a.m. when the 65-year-old women, cigarettes in mouth, cards in hand, fall asleep in their chairs. I’m just waiting for one of them to bust out the line, “Hanging arrround, hanging arrround, kids got alligator blood, can’t get rrrid of him.”
But in the group there are some very, very good players.? Noel “J.J.” Furlong, the winner of the 1999 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas ($1 million dollar prize, all in $100 bills) plays a couple times a week. As the only Irish winner of the most prestigious poker tournament in the world, he is feared at the table. I had the pleasure of playing against him, and managed to get away with enough money to buy myself McDonald’s breakfast.
“The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent: happens at the poker table all the time.”- General David Shoup
Watching the development of the Iraqi War, I can’t help but think that it resembles a big game of poker. Betting, bluffing, raising, folding, strategizing, weighing the strength of your opponents, making the first move, deciding whether or not to stay, all a part of war and poker. President Harry Truman used poker to make the biggest decision of his life. After playing for three days aboard the cruiser Augusta, he called a meeting, where he detailed the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Right after the meeting, out came the chips and cards. Richard Nixon used his poker skills to fund his campaign against Congressman Jerry Voorhis. However, the Watergate cover-up turned out to be the biggest bluff Nixon ever tried. Then there was JFK, who was never known to be much of a card player, but sure displayed the skill of one during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I’ve got a little more than six weeks remaining here in Dublin. The Irish Open Poker Championship is coming up in two weeks and I hope to represent all the “Phils” back home. I’ve been doing fairly well so far, mostly due to what I learned in those weekly Georgetown card games. For those of you who have thought about getting into poker, go for it!? All you need is a deck of cards, some chips, good people, and a copy of Rounders on DVD. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got business to attend to.? “They all know me as small-time but that’s about to change.? Gimme three stacks of high-society!”
