Bigger Deal

My Fantasy Poker Game

By Cindy Blake

On holiday in Turkey , with no WiFi or Internet connection and not a casino in sight, I wiled away some mental time in the sun by concocting my Fantasy Poker Game. Allowing myself both living and dead players, and limiting the table to seven, I surprised myself by my instinctive first choice: Richard Nixon.

Why do I want to play poker with Tricky Dicky? To see exactly how tricky he is (was). After all, the guy had one obvious tell: his tendency to sweat when feeling cornered. It has often been said that he lost the ‘60 election to JFK because, during the pre-election debate, while JFK looked cool, calm and collected, Nixon oozed sweat And, as I recall, Nixon’s television appearances during the early 70s could have been called PerspirationGate. I would relish the moment when he tried to bluff the table and I caught a little trickle of water running down his neck.

Or, who knows? He might be a charmer at the poker table. He could feel free to swear without worrying about being taped; he could tell tales about China, we might even get the truth out of him about something. Anything. It would be worth a try.

My next choice is Norman Mailer - not because he is the writer I most admire, but because I think he’d be good on table talk. Of course he’d give Nixon a hell of a time and he’d add the gruff, macho element which would make the game a real battle. His sheer presence would make the men want to prove who was the Alpha at the table, while I would unobtrusively steal all the pots from warring egos.

A more obvious Dream Player is Amarillo Slim. Over a decade ago, I played with him in the unlikely setting of a Morrocan casino. If Tom Wolfe had done for poker players what he did for pilots in The Right Stuff, Amarillo would have been the Chuck Yaeger of the piece. They both have that drawl, that (sometimes) flirtatious teasing, the ability to cut through the bullshit and make you laugh while they’re doing it. Slim would bring Mailer down a whole load of pegs, and a head-to- head hand between them would be a delicious battle at which to spectate.

Sigmund Freud. Now why do I think he’d be the fish? I have an image of him as being so sure of himself and his ability to read the others that he’d over-analyze the game and bring about his own downfall. ‘Read em and weep’ I hear Slim saying, at which point Freud would burst into tears and, in an unhinged Stu Unger moment, throw his cards at the dealer.

I’m all too aware that I have yet to nominate another female for my table. So here goes: Marilyn Monroe. Not only because she’d throw the others off their game , but also because I believe she was a lot more shrewd than she was given credit for. Besides, I’d like to beat her in a big pot, just so I could feel superior to her for a brief and shining moment.

My final fantasy player is Thierry Henry. He’d bring that French elan - or I should say - va va voom; he might even have Marilyn shaking a little . But the main point of having him there would be to beat him. The beauty of the game is that it levels all playing fields. And to be on the same pitch as Henry and come out a winner - now that’s some fantasy.

Anyone think they can top my Fantasy team?

Posted by Cindy Blake on August 17th, 2007 in Celebrities, Poker.
Comments: 8

Play Poker

Play Poker Against Cindy Blake - sign up now to play in the monthly tournament with all Bigger Deal's writers

Comments

Comment from Anthony Holden
Time: August 17, 2007, 5:32 pm

Nice one, Cind… I’d go for my two historical heroes : Shakespeare (”To bet or not to bet?”) and Mozart (Eine Kleine Baizemuzik); Don Giovanni, because his ego would get in the way; Bill Gates, because he learnt to play from Big Deal - i.e. he’s not very good - and he’s got lots of dough; and the two women would be… let’s see… Madame Bovary (fatally flawed) and Scarlett Johansson, in case I could win more than money off them…

Comment from Charley
Time: August 18, 2007, 4:30 am

This does open a can of worms, as I can imagine most people have some similar fantasy. I’ll just say that if Nixon was there, I would want Kissinger to be there, too! I think the latter would have very good reads on the former.
But, after all, I can’t resist one idea: Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt at the same table…

Comment from Johnny Hughes
Time: August 18, 2007, 2:46 pm

Nixon supposedly financed his first Congressional campaign with poker winnings. He had around ten dimes at the end of World War Two. If you had Norman Mailer and Freud at the poker table, Amarillo Slim would be as quite as a church mouse pissing on cotton. It might be a tad impolite to mention that he pled guilty of child molestation, but Mailer would surely do it if he was the target of any tired old West Texas sayings.

Nixon would be the only one trying hard to beat Marilyn. He would also be paranoid that she was there as some type of rep of his arch enemies, the Kennedys.

If the trash talking started, Cindy would come out looking the best.

“You stabbed your wife.”

“You felt up your granddaughter.”

“You caused Watergate.”

“How many Kennedys have shared your bed?”

“You are a coke freak.”

“You are French.”

I’d bet on Nixon whether there was violence or not.

Johnny Hughes

Comment from spencer
Time: August 20, 2007, 2:55 pm

You surely want a big fish in the game, don’t you. How about someone like Michael Owen….well know punter and not ashamed to splash the cash.

Comment from Peter A
Time: August 22, 2007, 2:19 pm

Cindy,
I actually play regularly with one of the players on your fantasy list, my uncle, Norman Mailer. He’s obsessed with Texas Hold’em, has read just about every book on it and though he sometimes has a bit of trouble seeing the cards if the light is not bright enough, he still manages to bluff and bluster his way through many a hand. Stormin’ Norman is still stormin’. I’ll show him your post. I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of it.

Comment from Richard
Time: August 24, 2007, 1:33 pm

I’d like to report on the heads-up match between Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman. No two contemporaries were ever this far apart and I’d like to think Feynman would win easily.

But you never know, god might turn up and play for Berty. However Feynman wouldn’t believe him and would call all the his bluffs.

Whatever the outcome it will be a great fight as these are not only smart guys but also incredibly arrogant. Which one of them said this;

“If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize”

Comment from James Hipwell
Time: August 29, 2007, 2:02 pm

Hi Cindy (I remember you from the PartyPoker Million IV Cruise but as I was new to poker then I had no idea you were The Moll!!). I’m not sure Tony would like to sit round the same table as this guy but Rupert Murdoch would be a formidable player. He would be guaranteed to get it all in on a semi-bluff, risking everything for the chance of domination - rather like he did when betting the farm on the launch of Sky TV’s ‘Astra’ satellite in the early 90s.

Comment from Anthony Holden
Time: November 19, 2007, 7:45 pm

Sympathies from all at BiggerDeal.com to our friend and fellow-blogger Peter Alson and his family on the demise of his feisty uncle Norman Mailer, still bluffin’ and blusterin’ as in the enjoyable exchanges above…