POKER HERE, POKER THERE

                                        

         While not totally elitist, poker in France used to be reserved to the upper classes.  French laborers might play tarot and belotte, but your average working stiff would no more sit in at a poker game than he would frequent the clubhouse at the Longchamps racetrack.  This exclusivity made for some weird conventions.  Since substance in Gallic society is generally subordinate to style, it was all right in our games to bet, but one was not allowed to hesitate before doing so.  Gestures and verbal influences were frowned upon.  Entrapment could only be done in a proper manner, whatever proper meant.  I guess the idea was that Parisian poker players were supposed to comport themselves like ladies and gentlemen. 

 

            Let me assure you, times are changing.  Not only is Yankee imperialism manifest by fast foods, rap music and Hollywood reruns, even the inner sanctums of stodgy Parisian baccarat clubs have given way to poker a l’americain.  Today you can witness as much shouting and shoving at Omaha and Hold ‘Em on the banks of the Seine as you can on Fremont Street or certain suburbs of L. A.  

 

            If one difference exists it is that distaff players in France tend to be less vocal than American women.  La femme francaise believes discretion to be the better part of the feminine mystique.  I’d better stop here before I get into trouble and, without facts or figures to fall back on, cop out by citing Disraeli’s statement that: “there are little lies and big lies, after which there are statistics.”

 

            Anyway, last night at the Rio, two American ladies put on a show of verbosity more common to the back room of a Texas roundhouse than to the chic salons of the Champs-Elysees.  We were playing no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em.  Not that the poker action made much difference.  Clearly the two women were familiar with one another from previous engagements.  Ellen, the woman with long brown hair addressed her blonde opponent by a less than tasteful appellation.

 

            “Do you want to know why everybody calls you ‘Dirty Dorothy’?  Because you can’t utter a single sentence without using a four letter word.”

 

            “Screw off, Sugar.  This is Las Vegas.”

 

            “That doesn’t mean you can’t act like a lady.”

 

            “I have no pretensions of being anything other than what I am.”

 

“And what, may I ask, is that?”

 

 “A poker player, baby.  Nothing more, nothing less.”

 

            “But such a foul mouthed poker player!”

            “What the hell do you care?’

            “It’s just not feminine.”

 

“Particularly from a girl as pretty as you,” I interjected.

 

“Shove it, Mister,” said Dorothy.

 

“I’ll second that,” said Ellen.  “Looks have nothing to do with what we are talking about.”

 

“Frankly,” I said, itching for trouble, “I find a woman’s anatomy far more interesting than her vocabulary.”

 

“What a f---ing creep,” said Ellen.

 

“Hey!” I said.  “You’re doing the same thing you reproached Dorothy for.”

 

“That’s none of your business,” said Dorothy in a show of feminine solidarity.

 

“But it is,” I said.  “As long as we’re sitting at the same table, it is very much my business.”

 

“Listen here,” said an elderly gentleman.  “Is it all right with you people if we cut the dialogue and get back to playing poker?”

 

        If there is a moral to all this, I suppose it is to acknowledge that playing poker in Las Vegas is not the same as playing poker in gay Paree.  In the musical ‘My Fair Lady,’ Henry Higgins says: “the French don’t care what they do say, as long as they pronounce it properly.”  That is not so.  The upper crust cares very much what they say.  It’s just that, rather than coming through sharp and distinct, French swear words sound like sauces at a fancy restaurant.  And French women, as everybody knows, are constantly on a diet.