The English summer is here and it’s all fun and games. The season proper is underway. Technically, yes, there’s that whole Cowes/Henley/Ascot thing going on, but I don’t mean those, or any of that grouse-shooting nonsense. Everyone knows that’s in August. Instead, I refer to the alternative games season.
There’s football’s World Cup, for starters, and England’s dull but effective performances won them their group. Plus, there’s the World Cup of bitching that is currently taking place on Channel 4’s nightly circus, Big Brother. With queen-bee Grace (best argument ever against single-sex schools) now taking up her rightful place on the front pages of The Star, it only remains to see if Mancunian Lisa (surely the long lost Gallagher sister?) gets a rude awakening in Friday’s evictions.
And, of course, there’s the first of the World Series of Poker 2006 events ready to kick off in Las Vegas in less than a week.
I, meanwhile, will be celebrating the start of my own personal season with an inaugural game of poker, played on an actual poker table. This is something of a rite of passage for me; I think it means entering into the grown-up world for the first time. Other people claim parenthood is the true test of growing up, but I think that launching a home game with a bona fide poker table is not to be sneezed at.
Call it the poker player’s mid-life crisis Ferrari-substitute if you will, but I am only sorry there isn’t a market for liver-shaped tables. What with the amount of alcohol consumed, that would be highly appropriate. And at last the dining table will be relegated to its proper role, that of dumping ground for a week’s worth of newspapers, dead flowers and unopened post.
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Coasters will be deemed redundant as drinks will be kept firmly at arm’s length from the enticing deep red baize. Good job, frankly, as I have never been happy with even the idea of coasters. I am pretty sure they are not mentioned in The English Aristocracy, Nancy Mitford’s essay that brought the terms “U and non-U” to public attention. (A quick Google reveals that indeed they are not, but it does reveal that I should be using the word “knave” instead of “jack” in card games. One-nil to Nancy.)
And so we have touched upon the hidden world of poker etiquette: how to actually behave at the table. This is not about folding ace-rag off-suit in early position or dumping your small pair to multiple reraises, but more of a what not to do social guide.
Here’s a tip, for starters: when you go to a friend’s for dinner (or luncheon if your friend happens to be Nancy M), do you really need to be told how to use your knife and fork? Doubtful. But would you dump a big plastic bag of leaking beer on the carefully-laid table? That has been deemed acceptable behaviour in our home game of old. Not any more. New table, new rules.
These include the terribly old-fashioned use-the-ashtray-rather-than-the-table rule. Seems obvious? You’d think, wouldn’t you, but this one is worth pointing out to the cigar smoker in your midst.
As for the old “let’s wolf down a greasy KFC on the table before we start” trick, that one’s banished forever. Nor is the tried and tested ‘I know, here are four bags of Haribo, let’s distribute them in glass bowls all among the poker chips while we’re playing’ fiasco ever to be repeated. Enough slack has been cut.
Aside from the fact that we have, on occasion, banned food while playing (house rules, house maxim: food and poker don’t mix), I concede that any confusion must have been owing to the fact that old games of poker were played on the dining table. The clue is in the name. Now it’s a poker table. Feast your eyes but not your KFC on that!
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Drinks, needless to say, will be banished to smaller, poker-friendly coffee tables and stools scattered strategically yet aesthetically around. This rule is of particular importance if you don’t want a repeat of the admittedly hilarious “see who can drop their chips into their beer” side-bet that seems to take place on a weekly basis. Sorry guys, all bets are off.
So I think that’s covered all options. Ground rules have been laid, the red baize will be vacuumed to get rid of the few remaining cat hairs, and what the hell, I may even clean the cards to honour the occasion. The game is Texas hold ‘em, knaves and deuces wild. I’m sure Nancy would approve.