Two lepers were playing cards. One threw his hand in and the other one laughed his head off.
What is it with men and the need to be cool?
The hand sliding through the hair, the rugged stubble, the kink in the walk and the slight puckering of those lips.
We can’t even blame our genes because our Dads are completely uncool. I was cool when I was a kid. My son didn’t believe me. I had to ring a friend to confirm. You should have seen his face. It looked like mine the day my Dad told me he could still shoot me in the eye despite having a vasectomy.
Cool cooks a la carte; cool wears Calvin Klein’s; cool screws all the best looking girls; cool gets the school jersey; cool smokes cigarettes; cool necks a pint in minutes; cool lost his virginity at 14; cool had a swagger; cool broke all the rules.
Uncool kids did maths.
Cool has even invaded our poker game. It’s become more important than merging your range. There used to be a time when people would deliberately look away from the flop because they didn’t want to give off a tell; these days nobody is looking at the flop because they are too busy being cool.
Take folding your hand as an example. The single most important lesson you could ever be taught in poker is to fold. But nobody ever told me that you had to fold…in a cool way.
The serious look. The squint in the eye. The flare of the nostril, the almost perfect lip restraint. The slip and slide of the cards. One beneath the other. The pick up…and then a quick flick of the wrist and the cards fly into the sky like a helicopter. It ends with a slight shrug and an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
So cool.
I wonder if it’s always been like that?
I wonder if learning how to muck your hand like a star has always been an important concept in poker? I have never read Super System. I wonder if there is a chapter dedicated to getting the helicopter just right?
I tried it once and nearly garrotted the dealer.
I bet Elvis Presley was great at folding his hand. Let’s be clear, I’m talking Heartbreak Hotel Elvis. I have no doubt the permanent residue of burger fat that would had stained the fingers of the Elvis that did things My Way would have had terrible trouble trying the helicopter.
Tony Montana is another guy who would have had guys wetting their pants every time he folded his cards. I can just picture him peering at his cards over a mountain of cocaine.
“What you looking’ at? You all a bunch of f***in’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your f***in’ fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy…but man can he fold a mean full house.”
Then there was David Bowie. The Thin White Duke. I mean what a cool poker name. And what do we get? Kid Poker! The Poker Brat! Texas Dolly! Give me The Thin White Duke any day.
“Boy could he play guitar?”
Boy could he fold a hand.
I know he was a tad eccentric but I reckon old Jacko would have folded a mean hand. He would have tipped his hat, rubbed the thumbs of his satin white gloves, rose to his feet, and flicked them in the air whilst doing the moonwalk, holding his balls and screaming some noise that is an actual word in the dictionary of the Ashaninka tribe in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
Bruce Lee is another one who would have been awesome at folding cards. He would have flicked them in the air and nun chucked them. That’s another man who made unpronounceable squeals into cool things to do with your bird on a first date.
And then there’s John Travolta.
The coolest cat in town.
I reckon Travolta could fold his cards in such a way that men would get as hard as a stick of Blackpool rock. I’m talking Vincent Vega. The man who makes an order at a fast food restaurant and the girl behind the counter faints. The dancer. The lover. The snazzy dresser. I would have loved to have seen Travolta flicking those cards into the air.
And these days?
Snoop Dogg would fold a mean card, but nobody would see it coming through the plumes of smoke. Ryan Gosling would fit perfectly into a modern game of poker. He doesn’t smile. There’s not a flicker of emotion, and he never speaks (well he didn’t in the two hours of the movie Drive). Gosling could muck a card with the best of them.
The one man I would love to see muck a card is Dan Bilzerian. Unfortunately, you are more likely to see the Loch Ness Monster than see Bilzerian play poker.
Did you know he had a staff of 20 people?
I reckon the man is so cool he doesn’t even muck his own cards. I reckon he hires porn stars to do it for him. That’s why he throws them off the roof. It’s his way of showing them how to create the perfect helicopter.
Watch Plenty of Cool Stars in Action
Some of the coolest poker players in the world took part in the partypoker Premier League 7, a fantastic series that you can watch here at the partypoker blog.
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