The joys and risks of poker

I had a few of my team-mates from the Division 4 team of St. Declan’s basketball club round for poker last Friday night. As well as the intrinsic joys of gambling, drinking, smoking cigars, and verbally abusing each other, the night was also a fundraiser for the club, with half of the money going to our permanently indebted treasury department.


I used to be involved in a regular poker game a while back, but we used to play 5 card draw. Friday night was No Limit Texas Hold-Em, which is an entirely different animal. It’s a lot more expensive to play each hand as there are more rounds of betting, and you can go ‘All-in’ at any time, pushing all of your chips into the pot. I decided it was a good idea to do this on the second hand of the night, with a full house. So I went ahead and lashed all €40 into the pot. Unfortunately, a certain team-mate who will never be forgiven had four 2s and called my bet in a hot second. So I was the first to crash out after 12 minutes of play.

Luckily there was an option to buy in a second time, so I had the opportunity to stay in the game and squander more money. I managed to outlast two people (out of 7 of us) before I went bust for good. Not much of an achievement, but I’ll get them next time...

I really enjoyed the game and I'm itching for another one. The following night I called over to a friend's gaff, and we called in on a neighbour of his and interrupted a poker session. There were about 8 lads sitting around a purpose built table, with little drink holders and chip holders and a green felt tabletop. It all looked very inviting, I must say.

I've set up an internet account, and I play a little online Hold 'Em every so often. I'd like to play a few more live games though. I have mixed results playing on the internet - I usually buy into a table for around €30, and I have often doubled my money. But my problem is that if I start losing, I compound it by keeping playing (and losing), instead of quitting and living to play another day. On Sunday night I stayed up till all hours, blowing €70 in the process.

I thoroughly enjoy the poker but it remains to be seen whether this little hobby is going to be in my own interest or not. It could so easily go horribly wrong... But fuck the begrudgers. I could become an expert and turn pro - and bid farewell to the Monday to Wednesday* grind...

By the way, a few times (usually with alcohol involved), I played a crazy variant of poker apparently called 'Indian poker'. It's mad stuff altogether. You whip a card quickly from the top of the deck, and hold it facing forwards atop your own forehead. You can see everyone else's card, but not your own. You then make bets on who has the highest card, basing your reaction on the expression on your opponent's face, I suppose. In my experience, it's generally difficult to judge their expression as s/he tends to be convulsed in laughter. It's good craic, but not one for the purists...




* the joys of worksharing... Heh, heh...

The CIA and Shannon airport

My friend Ian has noted that it is disturbing how little media attention is on the current extraordinary rendition case being heard in Italy. Extraordinary rendition is the process whereby the CIA kidnaps people, and detains them extrajudicially. These people are often subject to torture. It really is that stark. The US is having people abducted from the streets of EU constitutional democracies without the knowledge of the domestic governments, and subsequently tortured.

I just want to note an Irish connection in this issue. Last summer, the Council of Europe rapporteur, Dick Marty, included Ireland's Shannon airport in a map of "secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers". The Irish government response is basically to say that they trust the Americans and everything will be grand. Irish Foreign Affairs minister Dermot Ahern accepted the assurances of Condoleeza Rice that Shannon was not used as a transit point for the CIA's abductees.

The US Air Force at Shannon

In February of this year, the European Parliament rejected Dermot Ahern's position and called for a Dáil inquiry into Ireland's role in instances of extraordinary rendition. In 2005, Amnesty International reported that 800 secret CIA flights had used European airspace, and noted evidence about specific flights in which Shannon airport was used as a stopover.

College night out

I'm just about to head out on the town with my college colleagues. We're going out for a meal, and I've totally forgotten where the meal is. It's all right though, we're going to the pub first so I'll just follow the crowd.

Haven't seen any of them for a while now, as we've broken up for the summer, and are all supposedly working away on our respective theses (dreaded deadline: September). I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, though meeting up makes me feel like I should have done a lot more work on my thesis over the last while. Oh well... Maybe when I hear how much work everyone else has done I'll be motivated to slave night and day in order to catch up.

This is officially the most useless post ever on this intermittent blog of mine.

Books I read in 2005

And now, partly inspired by the fact that Martin Scorsese keeps lists entitled ‘Films I have seen this year’, I present the list of books I read in 2005:

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
  (this book has been a huge influence on me, and I’ve read it three times now.)
  
• Our Man in Havana – Graham Greene
  
• The Third Man – Graham Greene
  
• The Basement Room (filmed as The Fallen Idol) – Graham Greene
  
• Hell’s Angels – Hunter S Thompson
  (If I was forced to pick, HST is probably my favourite writer.)
  
• All the President’s Men – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
  
• The Gambler – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  (I read this in a hostel in Toronto.)
  

• The Last Season – Phil Jackson
  (…and this on the plane on the way home. This is about the LA Lakers 2003-4 season, detailing the many feuds between the team's two talented stars, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. It’s written by their coach.)
  
• Introducing Environmental Politics – Stephen Croall & William Rankin
  
• Saints & Spinners – David McWilliams
  (This is a kind of forerunner to The Pope’s Children – it’s different to the more well-known version – this one was written for marketers rather than for a general readership. It wasn’t what I expected but it’s very interesting. There’s a lot of pretty cynical stuff in there. It discusses Ireland’s future demographics, predicts how consumer tastes will change, and offers ways for marketers to get a piece of the action. I really like McWilliams’ analysis of Irish society and his honesty, but I don’t share his benign view of the market. I would have a more critical view of consumerism and put more emphasis on its inadequacies and its damaging effects. This book really shows the extent to which men in suits will put a huge amount of work into pigeonholing the general citizen as a very specific target market.)
  

David McWilliams

• Chronicles, volume 1 – Bob Dylan
  
• An Giall – Brendan Behan
  (Delighted with myself to have read this in the original Irish from cover to cover. Behan was not a native Irish speaker, but while in jail, he learned Irish from his cellmate. This prisoner was from Ballyferriter in the Dingle peninsula. It was in Ballyferriter that I did a week-long civil service Irish course to resurrect the Irish language within me (in 2003, I think it was).)
  
• The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
  

Me at the entrance to Dostoevsky's gaff in St. Petersburg

• Collected Short Stories – Anton Chekhov
  (I love the Russians)
  
• Buddha: His Life and Thought – Karen Armstrong
  (This writer has serious credibility when it comes to religion. She spent seven years as a Catholic nun, has received a Muslim Media Award, and has taught in some school for the study of Judaism. I’ve seen her speak, and she has a great take on religion and how it interacts with politics and society.)
  
• Wilt – Tom Sharpe
  
• Cape Clear Island: Its People and Landscape – Eamon Lankford
  (This is about an Irish language-speaking island in Cork that I have often visited, and is one of my favourite places in the world. I think it’s the most southerly inhabited point in Ireland – the most southerly point of all is the nearby Fastnet lighthouse, which casts its light over the island at regular intervals.)
  
• The Hard Life – Flann O’Brien
  
• The Sandman Companion – Hy Bender
  
• The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
  

Lebanese writer Kahlil Gibran

• Smoke and Mirrors – Neil Gaiman
  
• Vision and Transformation – Sangharakshita
  (A book about the Buddhist eightfold path.)
  
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson
  (200 pages of drug fuelled insanity – very un-Buddhist.)
  
• The Comedians – Graham Greene
  
• Twelve Bar Blues – Patrick Neate
  
• Justice Seeker: An Anthology in Tribute to Malcolm X – James B Gwynne (ed.)
  
• Pork Pie Hat – Peter Straub
  (an audio book.)
  
• Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell
  (one of my favourite books.)
  
• Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller
  
• The Crucible – Arthur Miller

The great Arthur Miller

So that comes to an average of around two books a month. Obviously, now that I'm a student, reading has become pretty essential. But I’ve always been a big reader. I used to eat books when I was a child, and I never really take any length of a train or bus journey without a book to read. I fell out of the habit a couple of years ago, but got back into it with the help of a book group and have never looked back.

Much better than TV...