The Poetry Portal Net

This was over a year ago, and it still makes me sick.

I’m sitting at a poker table with a lot of people I know, and I’m holding the large stack of chips, and I’ve just been dealt an Ace-King suited. I’m a happy camper. Just to my right is a new player who has had a few decent hands and has about half my chip count. I double the blind and watch as three more players, including the rookie, call.

The flop comes-a ten and two Kings. I’m sitting on trip Kings and I’m stoked, so I keep betting. The turn comes-3 of clubs and it’s no help to anyone. I throw some more chips into the pot and eventually it’s just the me and the kid, who tentatively calls every time I raise.

The river comes-an Ace completes my full house. I check and the kid raises me. I decide to have mercy and leave him enough chips to keep playing. I call him almost all in and give him a lecture about being more careful with your chips. When he calls, I turn my cards over with a smug grin…one which evaporates as he turns over his pocket Aces. The kid had a full house, Aces over Kings, beating my full house, Kings over Aces. It hurts to even write about it.

poker lesson learned. Keep your mouth shut at the table, because some bastard might end up with the one hand that can beat yours.

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I’m of the belief that anything, when done in moderation, is just fine, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others or hurt other people in any way. This includes poker, especially if it’s being done for charity.

So you can imagine my dismay today when I read a PokerNews brief about some firemen in West Virginia who got in some serious trouble over a few poker fundraisers they held to, well, raise money.

Authorities say the poker tournaments the poker tournaments the Westmorland Seward Volunteer Fire Company organized are illegal, and now the law is coming down on them.

The fine that the West Virginia Attorney General’s office is seeking to impose on the fire house is equal to what the department raised with its charity tournaments: $40,000. The Texas Holdem tournaments were held over the course of the past year. The attorney general said that the tournaments were illegal regardless of what the purpose was, charity or not.

Now, since this was a charity, I’d argue the department wasn’t in this to make any money. It was definitely more for the fun, and the fact that it was a game many people enjoy playing pretty much any time of year, it enticed people to donate who might normally not have done so.

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