Skip to main content

The Parable of the Poker Player


  Lance, an aspiring master Poker player, believed that winning was all about being able to tell when a opponent was bluffing. For hours, stretching to days and then weeks, he watched footage of future opponents to ascertain when they had been bluffing their way through a hand. 
  Lance commented, 'They would have betrayed themselves in various ways - circling a middle finger on the baize, raising a glass much more slowly than normal to take a sip, tilting a free hand straight up on its heel...'
  So now when Lance played, he would act upon all the knowledge that he had collated. But still he didn't progress beyond the semi-final stage in any tournament. 

  Perhaps if he had watched footage of himself, he might have spotted his own bluffing tic: a gentle flick at the card farthest right in his hand. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Mate Jamie-Ray Hartshorne

     I've been noticing that alongside photos of Jamie-Ray being a lead in Altar Boys , creating Change My Body UK TM , working the door at Freedom - and clearly asking people passing by wherever that rockpool may be to snap a double-bicep - this sort of thing is cropping up on his social media:   We're in The Diner, Jamestown Road, Camden.  He's between tour dates of  The Bodyguard,  and meetings to discuss sportswear and creatine endorsements.  The latter, he says, being all about making his product better.   Between sips of his peanut butter milkshake (he's allowing himself dairy today in my honour - I don't quite know how to take that) he says in his soft Brum, 'I've signed up for a major Muay Thai event in Thailand next February.  I'm going up against one of the Thai fighters.  That's the only real way to gain any respect in the fighting world.  That's why you've been noticing the combat photos.  I...

Me Featuring in The Sunday Times, Nicely...

  This happened. The editor thinks it's a book of dog sitter stories waiting to happen. I am scribbling away at same...  I first house-sat by accident. I was originally at Haven House, Lembton, as a live-in safety net for Lady Olive Simmonds, a seventy-nine year-old Bostonian with a lilac afro, a Temazepam habit and leg ulcers. Haven House was by the sea. Eighteenth century, elegant, comfortable.  But there was Olive... Always in pain; either drunk, hungover or both; barely educated. She had married a man who was knighted, and believed this gave her a licence to be a twat. According to Olive, her fellow Lembtonians were all dull academics - this group having reading ages older than hers, which was thirteen - or failed schizophrenics. She had serious monophobia, with staff working (unnecessarily) every day apart from weekends. At weekends, first thing, anxious, she would ring round the Lembtonians that were still speaking to her - six in number - inviting them for coffee, ...

Remembering the Duke of Edinburgh

     All I remember about this night was the Royal Marine  confiscating my chocolate HMS Victory canon ball...   Lovely mention from  The Telegraph  about the Trafalgar 200 supper on board HMS  Victory  with Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh as guests of honour.  Lula, harp, and I performed the Duke of Edinburgh's favourite song.