Non-violent Poker

This is technically a continuation of the previous post. At the point of writing the last one I was convinced that the day couldn't get any worse, and expected the rest of the day to remain largely uneventful. Events have a proven track record of being nasty to me.

Soon after I made the last post and was staring at the screen blandly for about 10 minutes with nothing to do, trying my very best to detract attention from any events happening nearby, fate drags me into a poker game at a friend's.

I have a very good poker face, because it comes quite naturally to me. I'm always in a high-strung state of self-preserving alertness, looking out for and trying not to get caught up in any local events. Its an evolutionary survival trait that I have mastered over the years. Think meerkats.

So there I was, wondering whether I will survive the night to pass on my recessive genes to future generations when suddenly the faces, the cries, the inner turmoil of all my descendents-to-be flashed before my eyes and I briefly passed out. For just like two seconds, really.

So anyway, it was a bunch of my friends, their girlfriends and this Indian dude, whom I shall refer to as GandhiOnCrack, for lack of a better name. In case he's reading this, its nothing personal man, you just had to do what you had to do, you heartless scum on the face of a dirty rock.

The first round was lousy, it was one lousy hand after another. Being an astute poker playa I didn't want anything to do with it so I folded. Then, watching my money slowly drain by the blinds, I suddenly noticed I had a couple of pairs. Damn, I thought, I might actually win this pot. I stared as blandly as I could at the wall and sighed. Then I looked around to see if anyone had picked up on the cue. I threw a couple of chips in, raised a few here and there and pretty soon we had an alluring pot. Gleaming in joy I laid down the cards, two pairs, beat that assholes. Gandhi, the sod, had a straight. Why that SONOFA!.

A couple of turns later, I had a nice little three-of-a-kind and Gandhi ended up with a flush. Gandhi *ucked me over several more times until he practically cleaned me out.

Then I got another two pairs, on the fold this time but I was a bit wary and jaded. I called, and Gandhi raised. This would be my last turn from the looks of it. My stack was running low, and Gandhi had chips worth the GDP of a small African nation. Pretty soon, the pot was formidable. We laid down the cards and Gandhi had zilch. The poor sod played half his money on nothing! I didn't have enough room for chips from that point on and was constantly playing with them and showing them off. And show them off, I did; to the point of being distasteful.

During breaks Gandhi was bragging about how he nearly cleaned me off and I SO wanted to whack the silly little bugger on the head and call his ma names. We had to stop at around midnight as all the ladies were beginning to complain. I would have loved to hang around and clean Gandhi's plate, but that'll have to wait for another day. As it turned out, I doubled my money. Victory, at last.