The depth of poker brought to the surface

Yes yes..hmmm yes..I've been watching "the Big Game" on poker stars TV. It's good stuff although the loose cannon on this week's show is a bit of a sap with what looks like half a hair cut. One of those many millions of Americans who buy all their clothes at the Gap, call their wives honey, and drink Lite Beer. One of the pros fighting over his money is Lex Velduis.

Lex has a cool sounding name in my opinion and may not even have heard of the Gap. He's Dutch and lord knows what toxins he has thrashing through his veins on any given day. He's keen on this meta-game jazz the kids always talk about and no doubt when you're playing at the nose bleed stakes it's an important aspect of the game.

However though, beneath all that 'he knows that I know that he knows that I know' jibber-jabber, there are still the fundamentals of the game. Human nature being one of those fundamentals. I believe he forgets this and tries to be too clever. Sometimes in poker a spade is quite literally a spade.

We cannot of course deny human nature...superseding everything one will almost always revert to type and it appears to me that internet whipper snappers like young Lex are all doomed to failure because there is inherent chaos in his being, oh yes...chaos much chaos.

Consequently too often this chaotic style polarises their hands so once one has scraped away all those layers of thinking it often boils down to a simple 'has he got it or not'...and given his nature, usually the answer is not.

In many ways this is illustrated by the fable of the scorpion and the frog....

"Good afternoon my good man" says the scorpion to the frog on the banks of a river one sunny afternoon.
"Eeeek, fuck, get away from me!" squeaks the frog.
"Be calm sir," says the scorpion reassuringly, "I seek only a safe passage across the river."

"You can fuck off," protests the frog. "If I carry you across the river you'll sting me and I'll die."
"But sir, I mean you no harm, if I sting you I will drown too," explains the scorpion.

"Well, OK then hop on," agrees the frog. Half way across the river the Scorpion raises his tail and drives his stinger deep into the back of the frog's head injecting lashings of his fatal venom into his brain.

"Oh you bastard, why did you do that?" asks the frog, "now we will both die!"
"I know, I'm sorry" concedes the scorpion, "but it is my nature."

I think you know what I'm trying to say. Good afternoon.