Tommy Tiernan
The secret to playing good poker
The best games in the world are the ones where outrageous, unjust luck can determine the outcome. None better than poker. You’re winning, this other dude is lying through his teeth, which look as if they’ve been stolen individually from other people. He reeks of sneakiness. For some reason, unknown to the logical laws of the universe, he’s staying in the hand, persisting with the folly, the silly proposition that he still has a chance. But it’s the way he’s looking at you. As if he’s privy to some demon stream of energy. He looks wounded, but it’s like he’s thriving on it, on the likelihood that you’ll get wounded too.
Two cards to get turned over. First one. Seriously? I mean OK, but seriously? Second card turned over. WTF! And you turn to the guy and tell him to his face, “You’re awful, the worst poker player that I’ve ever seen in my life”, and he smiles and takes all of your money. The odds on what just happened happening are unlikely in the extreme. You did everything right, he did everything wrong. And you lost.
The best way to play poker, and I’ve tried it myself and it is thrilling, is to not look at your own cards. Decide before they arrive what they are, and then act accordingly. It’s amazing that when you’ve decided without glancing that you have aces, everybody else at the table becomes convinced that you have them, too. They start acting like you’ve got the cards that you’re pretending to have. I suppose what you’d be doing is less playing the game than playing with the game. An admirable position.
Pool, another magnificent amphitheatre of chance. Again you’re winning, in total contol. Your friend from the poker table surveys his options. He’s not a great player — holds the cue all wrong.
He addresses the cue ball in short, jittery movements like his arm has a stutter. His bloodshot eyes and stubbled face give the impression of a man who lives well hidden from fresh air and daylight. A man who has surrendered to his worst instincts. He’s given in to the lizard in himself.
He tries something absurd. And of course it doesn’t happen. No. Something even more inconceivable does. Something so unimaginable that the balls themselves are in shock. The pool table needs to lie down and take a rest.
He looks over at you, this goblin, his caterpillar eyebrows rise up into his five o’clock-shadow forehead and he starts laughing. It sounds like the death rattle of a Honda 50. But fair play to him, that’s the game, and for one beautiful moment, the sun of luck is shining on him.
The best way to play pool is to not give a damn about the outcome. There’s more fun to be had attempting the beautiful and strange with every shot that you have, than there is in trying to win. Because if you win, then someone loses, and that’s no fun either.
Games which proceed logically and justly are inherently lifeless. Chess: a fine, clever enterprise. Mind against mind, competitive in the extreme — but where’s the opportunity for fluke? Every seventh move should be made by a chimp or a child. There ought to be at least three pieces on the board with minds of their own. If sometimes it was played with actual horses, it might be more engaging. If the pieces aren’t in some way anarchic, then the players need to step up. Every time you capture one of your opponent’s men, then you have to take a different drug. LSD, temazepam, Valium. Every game needs the chaos factor.
The genius of rugby is not the heifer men who play it. It’s the shape of the ball. A ball that, when bouncing, could jip in
any direction whatsoever. It’s as if it’s actively trying to escape the clutches of whoever’s pursuing it. Like watching an obese child chase a chicken.
It is the games that most mimic life that keep us coming back to them. The games that have the possibility of injustice woven into them. These are the games that teach you about yourself.
It is the fact that at any moment something unfair could happen. Is almost guaranteed to happen. It is this that should teach us how to play. Passionately, but slightly stupidly, too. As if the outcome was beyond your control, but that you could have your say with style.