Several months ago, I wrote : “Anybody who says
Texas
Holdem
poker is
a sport is an idiot.” At the time, I might have been
on top, or perhaps even ahead, of the curve with my
condemnation. After all, with the exception of weekday
afternoons on ESPN2, you could toss the figurative
brick through both the television schedule and pop
culture as a whole without hitting poker. I figured
the phenomenon would peter out, like swing-dancing and
Kurt Warner’s deal with the devil.
How naive I was. How naive we all were, really.
Texas
Holdem
Poker is
apparently the game of the people. Now, you can’t flip
through your TV channels without hitting a
Texas
Holdem
poker
broadcast. It’s now the flagship ESPN, not ESPN2,
that’s flooded with episodes (and reruns and re-reruns
ad infinitum) of this year’s World Series of Poker,
and the network’s Web site regularly runs columns
regarding the game.
Even Bravo has managed to make space between its 43
daily hours of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” to
regularly show installments of “Celebrity Poker
Showdown.” Where can we go from here? Tim Russert
discussing straight draws on “Meet the Press”? Move
over NASCAR, there’s a new cultural trend in town, and
it’s apparently got pocket aces and the chip lead.
You might note in that last sentence my bear-trap-like
grasp of
Texas
Holdem
poker
terms. Nobody’s going to accuse me of being behind the
curve. Besides, it turns out I might actually be
decent at this particular fad. I base this on one
fact: Last weekend, I played in my first-ever poker
game. Somehow, I managed to beat six friends in a
not-so-friendly game of Texas Hold ‘em (for those not
up to speed, this is the version of the game played by
big-stakes poker players), in the process winning $30.
I am now a total poker fanatic.
In
the same piece that I mentioned earlier, I wrote about
my deep-seated belief golf is not a sport. Some
readers pointed out they thought my logic was flawed.
“You’re an idiot,” is how most of them put it. I’m not
ready to concede their point yet, but I can say this:
If golf is a sport, then
Texas
Holdem
poker
definitely is. I can tell because both of them turn
otherwise socially-skilled people into blithering
idiots.
Golf has always caused perfectly normal people to
regale you for hours with tales of their latest round
on the links. They can’t help it, and I’m as guilty as
anyone of this trend. If we don’t tell you about the
five iron we hit on 13, we may burst. Modern medicine
has yet to grasp that the upward trend in heart
disease might not be linked to obesity, but instead to
pent-up frustrations about hitting carelessly-placed
bunker rakes with perfect pitch shots.
Texas
Holdem
Poker is
no different. No red-blooded poker player can let you
mention the game even peripherally without launching
into his or her own tales of blood, guts and crushing
losses to surprise flushes. Most of these recitations
are done with such excitement that the result is part
war story, part murder mystery and part daily bridge
column. (“I had two pair, but West flopped a full
house, meaning I had to kill North with a sharpened
10-dollar chip.”)
I
thought the poker fad would die. I was wrong. It may
not be a fad at all. It’s quickly taking a place in
the Pseudo-Sports Pantheon, along with bowling and
billiards. Thanks to last weekend’s poker game,
cynical old me is along for the ride.
Why do I tell you all this? I absolutely have to tell
you how I won our
Texas
Holdem
poker
game. See, I drew 4-2 off-suit, and I would have
thrown it in, but my opponent checked instead of
raising … Hey! Come back here!
