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'The Axis Of Evil
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8
July 13 ® 2006
mid the 24-hour news sta-
tions on cable television
comes another nearly 24-
hour daily event.
On any given day, at any given hour,
you can find a Texas hold 'em poker
tournament for your viewing plea-
sure. Professionals, celebrities and
retired auto mechanics who have won
a seat playing online poker are fea-
tured in poker tournaments around
the world.
The invention of the min-
iature camera brought the .
television viewer into the
picture, allowing all to see
the cards being played and
what strategies the players
use to beat each other.
Professional players have
become celebrities and
celebrities have become
poker players. They all have
their own poker-playing
styles.
After a recent evening channel
surfing between Celebrity Poker
Showdown, the news of yet-another
North Korea missile launch and a
Doogie Howser, M.D. rerun, I came
up with an idea.
Because the United Nations is
doing such a "swell" job at keep-
ing things on an even keel around
the world, why not sit world leaders
down at the poker table and hash
things out?
What would happen if Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
North Korea's Kim Jong 11, Al Qaida
leader Osama bin Laden and the
heads of the Shias and Sunnis in
Iraq faced President George W. Bush
across the felt?
I couldn't tell you who would win
— (luck plays a big part in games of
chance) — but I've watched enough
poker tournaments to know a per-
son's betting style and what to avoid.
Ahmadinejad is a tilt player, always
betting crazily and ranting about
Zionists, the Holocaust that never
happened and asking for a nuclear
reactor.
He's dangerous because he can
always re-buy chips. Sitting on that
oil barrel he's using instead of a stool
makes emerging industrial countries
like China and Russia (who want that
oil) ignore those comments and stake
him anyway.
Kim Jong Il is a bluffer who tries
to steal the blinds (the two forced
bets in each hand) if they're show-
ing weakness. He shares the same
problem as Napoleon (Bonaparte, not
Dynamite) — he's compensating for
his height.
He'll occasionally get into a big pot
with a small-suited hand and try to
stay in the hand with a flush draw. If
you're going to beat him,
you'll have to re-raise
him for most of his stack
(chips), but be careful.
Sometimes a bluffer isn't
bluffing; he could double-
up on you.
The Shia and Sunnis in
Iraq are that dangerous
pair at the table. They're
always fighting to the
death when they're fac-
ing each other in a hand.
They hate each other and always talk
trash to each other. No one wants
to play in a hand when they're both
involved because the pot usually isn't
that big. It's best to sit to the right of
them so you know when to fold your
cards. If you do get caught in a hand,
fold right away, even if you have
pocket aces or Big Slick (ace, king).
The only time the Sunnis and Shias
work together is against someone
else.
Bin Laden isn't a poker player, but
he'd pay the entry fee so he could
blow up a few tables.
Dubya should know how to play
this game — it's Texas hold 'em for
God's sake.
I figure him a tight-aggressive play-
er, willing to fold marginal hands and
not bluff too much. Once in a hand,
he bets aggressive early and tries to
win the hand before the river (the last
card). He'll slow play the nuts (try to
bet small or call a hand that cannot
be beat to extract the most money).
He should also wonder if he's nuts
to find himself at a table with these
guys, but that's another column.
Shuffle up and deal. E
Harry Kirsbaum's e-mail address is
hkirsbaum@thejewishnews.com .