any better. I should correct that -
seeing people we're told are celebrities bet. The producers
of "The Celebrity Poker Tour" should change
the name to "The People Who are On TV That You May
or May Not Recognize Poker Tour." I'm not excited
to turn on Bravo and say, "hey, isn't that the guy
from.oh, you know who I mean!" We shouldn't need
IMDB to know who a celebrity is.
Real celebrities have an unfair advantage
when they play against everyone else. The $10,000 buy-in
to the tournament Ben Affleck won is nothing to him -
I'd be great at poker if money didn't mean anything. Also,
the man bluffs for a living. Not as an actor, but as a
person. When you can convince the world that "Gigli,"
"Reindeer Games," and "Daredevil"
are good flicks, going all in on a pair of sevens is cake.
Nevertheless, watching poker is exciting.
It's fun to see a guy push all his chips forward and either
take them back or get wiped out, it's fun to see an unpredictable
hand settled on the final card, and it's fun to imagine
what you'd do if money were no object. I've been playing
games with a $20 buy in since I was 15 - it'd be much
more exciting if my friends and I were playing for the
box office receipts of Gigli. You know, $50.
But soon we may not just have household
names playing poker, but poker players becoming household
names. Interpoker.com is running commercials to garner
support to place poker in the Olympics. The commercials
are probably just a way around the rule that a gaming
website can't buy advertising time for itself. But it
begs an interesting question. What would happen if poker
were played between countries? I'd love to see how the
economic disparity played out.
The French representative could lead off
with a bet of 10,000 Euros. After everyone finished laughing
at him for having purple money, the bet would come to
the representative from Burundi.
"I see your 10,000 Euros, and I raise
you this baby."
Not to be backed off, the American would
see both those bets.
"I'm in for 10,000 Euros, which is
about $12,000 US now because our currency is worthless.
And the baby - I guess that's the price of a cup of coffee
per day, right?"
Of course, the American wouldn't raise.
He would just watch what the other countries do, judge
them later, and wait to hear what the Saudis have to say.
The Saudi representative would have to
bet - he'd be playing with the most cash of anyone on
the table. He'd be able to easily see the 10,000 Euros,
and the baby, and also raise everything in his pocket.
Which, by coincidence, would be the American's politicians.
So everybody would be in - well, not everybody
because the French guy would fold. But everyone else would
be in. First, the guy from Burundi would get disqualified
for eating the king of spades. And the guy from Saudi
Arabia would get arrested for BEING the King of Spades.
So the only one even eligible to win would be the American,
who would throw down a full house. Actually, it would
be a pair of threes, but the American would swear it was
a full house.
"We thought we had a full house on
the table. There was documentation of a full house. British
intelligence told us there was a full house! And we're
going to keep playing until we find one."
So poker fans, do you know who would be
the big winner? No, not the American - the baby. Or maybe
the Canadian because he would still have good health care.
Steve Hofstetter is the author of the
Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com.
E-mail him at steve@stevehofstetter.com.
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