18 February - Porn & Poker

Damn, there I was, worried that Toph may go cross eyed looking at his computer screen in the pursuit of porn (now that he has broadband and it’s so fast to navigate) but hadn’t thought about potential more ruinous pursuits. The boy is good at poker, always has been (and chess come to mention), but hasn’t played at anything more taxing than family get-togethers for a while. But here we are. A couple of days ago he showed me his latest state of play at a virtual table that you can join with $25. Glad he was not on the $1k tables.
He won, he lost, he won. I quite liked his poker moniker and wonder who the other players round the computer table were. One is a laconic Greenlander. When asked how life was in Greenland he simply replied ‘fine’, maybe he had to concentrate too hard on his game for chats or maybe some polar bears were knocking at his window. So I happily sat on Toph's lap for a while to listen to his 'live' commentary as he went about his moves.
Some of this has got to rub off I thought. Am still at the level where I play according to my hand and not according to what I think the others have in theirs (er, that seems to be what you have to consider) and more crucially what is the best hand anyone could have and I should aim to beat; if not, zealous folding is required. If I had 5 mins to think about it each time, I’d work it all out but you have to be faster. The computer tell you so quite drastically “BB23, you have ten seconds to make your mind up or you lose the chance of placing your bet or folding etc”. Make your mind up NOW. Too fast for me.
Today we have a development. Toph doesn’t join me in reading the papers sprawled out on the floor with smoochies in between getting each other’s attention about what we’re reading – the only section discarded unanimously being the sport one. After a short while I creep up to his office and there he is… as I suspected: the poker is up on the screen. In his defence he says he’s winning. I let him be. Half an hour later I still hear the soft tapping of keyboard whenever he places a bet. I go and remind him this is not on to ignore me this long. But he’s winning (from $19 back to $180, good work for an hour or so). Great, I say, quit whilst you’re well ahead. But oh no, he’s playing against not to so good players according to him and his new nemesis, NM88, who seems to always be ‘up’ on his stash, is not playing right now. Ok I say you have half hour and I pad back to the living room, but not before cursing him with “You’re now going to lose it all cause you don’t know how quit whilst you’re ahead”. Half an hour comes and goes.
He only stops playing two hours after he started, and that’s because his mate J. rings to go for dinner with us. By this time I’ve decided that I don’t want to know if he’s up or down as it would annoy me (if he’s down obviously, and you can never be always up, the game doesn’t work like that). He bounces in and kisses me and tells me he’s won but… I don’t believe him. He would say that, wouldn’t he? Especially upon noticing my scowl.
Am hatching a plot to sign up to his same website and play too, see if I can then catch him out when he says he wasn’t playing at such and such a time but I can easily prove that he is. However this is not easy to set up as a) he can play in the day and at my work it’s impossible (must count as instant sackable offence) and b) do I really want to play at home in the evenings just to prove a point? The point being a) you’re lying to me and b) possibly that a beginner can just about win too. Probably not, however, this spells the first Sunday he’s ever been in the same space as me, but not 'with' me. Is the honeymoon over so soon after 14 Feb? Oh woe! Think the next test will be to appear in fetching undies everytime he starts to play. If the poker wins, I'll get my coat.