The more senior Replayers may recall that John Lennon released a solo single titled Mind Games. I can’t imagine (pun intended) the intensely socialist former Beatle playing a capitalistic game such as Texas Hold’em. Don’t get me wrong. I suppose if a poker legend like Barry Greenstein can frequently donate significant portions, if not all of his tournament winnings to charity, it’s possible, but again, pun intended, I wouldn’t put money on it.
At any rate, the tune played on my internet radio channel while I was going through a card drought in a tournament. You’ve been there. The blinds were starting to squeeze me like a pimple between Napoleon Dynamite’s thumb and forefinger. Still, I sat there, begging the poker god, who had inexplicably taken the form of John Lennon, for one good hand to give me some breathing room.
Aces, give me aces, I pleaded.
No?
Okay, I’ll settle for kings, queens, or jacks. Ace-king or queen, too. They don’t even need to be suited.
Yeah, that’s not happening either, is it?
Pretty soon, I’m ready to settle for pocket eights or an unsuited ace-nine, but it doesn’t matter. John isn’t in a charitable mood.
Then it occurred to me. If this chintzy, second-rate deity is giving me the opposite of what I’m asking, why not try playing a mind game with him?
A little reverse psychology might just be the 250K tournament ticket. If I can convince him I really don’t care, maybe, just maybe, he’ll relent and finally grace me with a premium hand.
Channeling my inner Pedro Serrano, I lit a new stick of incense, wafted the smoke with both hands until it was just a bit outside, then stared at the monitor, waiting for the next hand.
“All I’ve been asking for is one decent hand,” I said. “I treat you with all the proper deference. I’m not one of those players who says it’s nothing but skill when the cards come my way. If people in the forum say you’re rigging the game, I stand up for you. Plus, I listen to Double Fantasy all the time without skipping over the Yoko tracks. Who else does that?
"You owe me. Now is the time to repay my devotion, but if you don’t give me a hand, then f— you, John, I’m jamming with any two cards!”
Spoiler alert: Lennon’s spirit was as cold to me as his cousins were to Christian Bale in Thor: Love and Thunder.
I found myself in the small blind splashing my last few thousand chips in a desperate effort to make a crooked nine-four-off look like a pair of straight-shooting bullets, something that’s especially difficult to accomplish when the big blind, the only other soul in the pot, is holding the genuine article.
Ah, well, you know what they say. The Walrus was Paul.