44. Poker Face – Lady Gaga 2008
Can't read my, can't
read my
No, he can't read my poker face (she's got me like nobody)
Can't read my, can't read my
No, he can't read my poker face (she's got me like nobody)
What’s the deal with old, entitled white males?
Don’t
bother answering that. I know the answer. They’re stuck in a very personally
convenient time warp and they’re expecting the rest of society to join them
there.
I’ve
recently taken up social poker. This is a game that I played on a regular basis
in my early thirties, and I was pretty good at it too. Youngish males would
join the table full of bravado and think they could bully me out of a hand by
betting big, using their bulky and/or fit physiques to try to intimidate me,
and telling me how I should play my cards, even advising “You had no business
being in that hand” after I’d relieved them of their chips.
It took a while, but I eventually
became bored of this scene and moved on to other activities.
A month of
so back I re-entered the world of social poker. Still heavily male dominated,
but the first couple of times I turned up it was great. Other players were
sociably helping me through the nuances of this particular poker group—you
know, the rules beyond the core poker rules that they play by. Then a new
player joined the table.
Now, this
late in the evening people typically join the free social game because they’ve
been knocked out of the paid tournament. They come to the table still steaming
over how they’d played their cards—or how other players had played their cards—and
keen to reassure themselves of their poker prowess in a free social game.
I gotta say
I’m not a particularly attentive poker player, ‘cause I barely noticed this guy
enter the game. He was just another player passing through. About two hands
later he had all my attention.
I had good
cards—something like ace ten off suit—and I was prepared to play them. I made
the call—four-thousand when the big blind was just eight-hundred.
“Your
saying four-thousand but betting twenty-thousand worth of chips. Which is it?”
“Well,
twenty-thousand then” I responded.
“You can’t
do that. You said four-thousand.”
Now, why he
asked me which I wanted to do when he was clearly going to hold me to the line
of the bet I called rather than the bet I actioned, I don’t know, but I sucked
it up and made the four-thousand bet. Turns out he did me a favour as I was
beaten by pocket eights.
A few hands
later and I’m making another move. I was so keen to make my move that I jumped
in before the guy sitting to my right had a chance to make a call. Mr Wanker
across the table from me snapped “Not your turn. You need to learn the rules if
you’re going to play the game!”, complete with condescending look and tone.
Now, I
could have again sucked it up and got on with the game. Or I could of had a
tantrum and left the table in disgust. Rather, I looked the guy straight-on and
said in, what I hope, was a forceful tone “You’re acting like a self-entitled,
old, white dude, so use some manners.” No poker face required.
The guy
didn’t say another word to me. He figuratively shrank into the shadows.
Then I
looked around and realised I was the only female on the table with only one
other white person. All the other players were young to middle-aged males of
various shades of yellow and brown.
No wonder
he shrank into the shadows. No self-entitled old white male wants to be dressed
down by ‘Oh my God! A woman!’ in front of a bunch of males. Even if
those other males were not his shade of self-importance.
Comments
Post a Comment