SHUT UP ALREADY: Play the game!

Last night I played Hold'em.

I like Hold'em, and I'm not a bad player. My friends and I jumped on the poker bandwagon not long before it became a nightly programming staple on five different channels, but its trendiness hasn't deterred our interest level.

Our regular poker nights have become infrequent due to people moving away and such, but I still find the occasional game. I enjoy testing my skills against new people, but it comes with an inherent flaw: the new people. Because of Hold'em's surge in popularity, everyone is now an "expert." You sit down to play and the guy next to you starts talking like he's a regular over at Teddy KGB's place. Oh yeah, and not ten minutes goes by without a Rounders reference (which doesn't really bother me, because I love that movie).

ESPN constantly airs the World Series of Poker. It's entertaining, I admit. Some of those guys are characters, and watching them play can be fun. Listening to some douchebag next to me act like he's at the WSoP final table, however, when he's actually at some guy's kitchen table slow-playing a $10 buy-in, is not fun at all.

So a buddy called me around 6 last night to see if I was up for a weekly game he recently started attending. I knew the guy hosting it as a friend of another friend of ours, but of the six others in attendance, half were strangers. Since I had nothing else to do, I figured why not? Let's play some cards.

Now when I first meet people, I generally try to be cordial and not immediately come off as an abrasive asshole. As with many things, not everyone shares my view. Twice last night I had this Vin Diesel look-a-like shit-talk me like he was auditioning to be the next Phil Hellmuth. Twice I took his ass out. I ended up winning the first game and I finished second in the next. On both occaisions, Vin Diesel's stack proved the catalyst I needed to make a move. Net profit for the evening: $40.

Shut up and play the game, jerkoff. And thanks for paying for my Happy Hour tonight.