Any time, any place…
August 14, 2007
As if
often the way when travelling with a bunch of poker journos, as soon as there’s any
dead time, focus immediately shifts to ‘a swift game’ of Hold’em. On one particular
trip I found myself as part of a REALLY mixed
group, with all levels of ’skill’ represented. We had two hardcore
Swedes who wanted to play for serious money, right through to a PR girl who thought
you needed two decks of cards to play Hold’em - the sort of situation that would lead
to what you might call ‘an interesting game’. If only we had chips…
Then,
looking down at the bar table, I noticed a small box of matches in an ashtray…
Each
box only held twelve matches, but with a bit of thought - and LOTS more boxes - we
might just make this work.
I
explained my plan: We break each match into two. The halves with the head are worth
100, the halves without, 25s, and the boxes are worth 500 each. Genius. Now we just
needed more matches. Leave this to me!
Stealth.
Cunning. Guile. Just some of the words that might have been used to describe how I
sauntered around the bar - ‘flying casual’ as it were - stealing boxes of matches
en route. At one point I had about twenty five boxes in my trouser pockets. Had there
been a sudden fire, everyone could have gathered round me and roasted marshmallows
while I ‘genied’ like a roman candle.
At
one point I caught the eye of the waitress whose job it was to ensure the tables all
had clean ashtrays and a supply of matchboxes. She squinted at me suspiciously; trying
to work out why her job had suddenly become so much more demanding despite the fact
that the bar was practically empty. I chuckled to myself. The perfect crime!
I
returned triumphant to the table, but all eyes were fixed over my shoulder. I turned
around and found myself face-to-face with the waitress who was sporting the sort of
face that practically spelt out the thought “you pathetic child”. Without saying a
word she dropped 50 boxes of matches onto the table, spun around and marched off.
So
much for the perfect crime… Anyway, who fancies a game of poker!
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