The lies of the green poker table

Poker is as fascinating as difficult; it has become a real sport

, and not only a game to be played in some illegal gambling house. To play poker a good technique and training are essential: there are poker tournaments and competitions, and everybody knows it, at least by name, but playing it is something different.

Poker, to describe it in a bare way, is a card game; there are no certain news about its origin: it might be a Persian game, which was taught by Persian sailors to the French colonists of New Orleans, but there is no certainty until the first testimony, which was given by actor Joseph Crowel, who speaks about a game played with a deck of 20 cards and 4 players, who have to bet on who will win the hand.

It is in the States that the poker takes off in the modern times, and it becomes widespread in Las Vegas, with its gambling temples, where playing poker is a must. Poker, indeed, is by its very nature a game of chance, because to play poker you have to bet something, and it is the game of chance where the most important feature is not luck (although you always need a bit of it), but ability: you must be able not only to value probabilities, but also to understand the behavior of opponents, distinguishing reality from bluff, and to bluff, which is allowed. You must keep in mind that every single expression on your face is secretly studied by all the other players, and it might be fatal for the success of the bluff, which might be essential to win: if you do not have good cards, you must pretend you have. Every poker strategy has to be studied, to find the best one, learning to prevent to prevent, like the poet, who "is a faker/ Who's so good at his act/ He even fakes the pain/ Of pain he feels in fact".

Then, after going through the poker rules, and once you know the scores inside out, you can start speaking "pokerish": the first word is "chip", which is the minimum bet to play, then "bet", if you are among the first ones that stake something, followed by "raise", if you are sure enough of your cards to bet a sum and see the cards of the other players to find out if they are bluffing or not, and "fold", the word used to withdraw from the game when you realize that the other players might not be bluffing and really have better cards than yours. A game with few words, and above all with few expressions.

This is a game made of lies, so to say, but in order to be able to play you need to understand the people you have in front of you. If you understand to what extent other players are willing to risk, and loose, maybe you can avoid losing too much, and if you study each movement and expression, which the other players might not succeed in controlling for a moment, you might be able to understand if it is better for you to go on playing or to stop.

The lies of the green poker table

By: Francesca Tessarollo

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