Red hot poker

Jack's choices of hobbies for me weren't always as successful as beekeeping.

Out of nowhere he gave me a book on how to play poker. I don't remember ever expressing an interest in the game.

The book was filled with the obvious information about the probabilities of filling your inside straights and how likely your two pairs will be beat at a table of four players.

The most interesting parts of the book were about the psychology of the game.

Much of the book was about how to play in a weekly game against a regular group.

We learned how to observe the mannerisms of our friends to understand when they're bluffing and when they have an exceptional hand. We learned how to encourage our friends to give away information through these signals. Of course it taught us how not to have such bad habits ourselves.

It taught us how to win but not win so much that our buddies stop playing. If one of the guys is looking like he's about to drop out of the Friday night game, we were told how to start losing some of our money to him so he'd be encouraged to stay in the game and lose much more money to us.

There were many problems with taking up poker for fun and profit (mostly for profit).

Among them:

1. I was a kid (in high school, but still a kid).
2. Without a lot of money.
3. Who didn't know anybody with money.

But mostly it seemed to be teaching me how to cultivate friendships in order to take as much of their money as I could. That didn't interest me.

There must have been tips on how to win against people we've never played against. But you probably have to get good at the game by first cleaning out your friends' bank accounts.

I never played poker for money.

I wonder why Jack thought I'd be interested in poker for a living at that time.

"Here, little number cruncher, you can make a living at what you're good at."

"Here's something I wish I could have done. Make me proud."

"This is your last best hope."

"Get rich quick."

I'll never know.