Mr. C's Profile

Is all this a good thing for teenagers? Is this what we want--kids who used to be outside on perfect fall afternoons suddenly hunched in the basement like Nathan Detroit's floating crap game? Is it a good thing that my son's buddies are all wearing green eyeshades and taking one another's busboy tips for hours on end while their muscles turn to linguini?

Betty George of the North American Training Institute,

She says that a teenager who gambles is two to three times more likely than an adult to become addicted to gambling. "We get a call every day from another teenager who's trying to figure out how to tell his parents he lost the car insurance money," she says.

What really sucks is that the kids are losing their own cash while the poker stars sort of aren't.

Hey, I play poker with my buddies.

requisite bad meatballs, cold beer and dirty jokes

Poker isn't a sport, it isn't for kids, and it sure as hell shouldn't be on my damn sports channels.

Sorry, I'm all out.

I would need a GPS and two sherpas to find up

GPS and two sherpas

my fairly athletic 17-year-old son on the phone, trying to "get a bunch of players" together. And he said how "the game yesterday was sick!" And how he was working on his "reads," needed "a really good kicker" and "wouldn't it be cool to get on ESPN someday?"

He and his schoolmates are playing some backyard football!

Wrong. He and his schoolmates are playing Texas Hold 'Em in the basement.

Do you realize that the 2004 World Series of Poker drew bigger ratings on ESPN than the first two games of the last Stanley Cup finals? And by one website's estimate, $100 million is bet on poker every day online?

And I came to this startling conclusion: This poker craze is the biggest waste of time since Stevie Wonder went to a mime festival.

I haven't seen this many doughy people since the Krispy Kreme company picnic. Do they tan under 40-watt bulbs? Where is the thrill in watching guys with 300 cholesterol levels play cards and rattle their chip stacks 1,000 different ways?

The current World Series of Poker champ, Greg (Fossilman) Raymer, wears back-of-the-comic-book gag glasses and gemstone necklaces and goes about 275 pounds, though a good 3% of that is muscle.

I hear what you're saying. You baboon. You don't have the foggiest idea what it takes to play world-class poker. It's cerebral. It's psychological. It requires patience, aggression and brains.

Really? Is that why a guy named Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 World Series of Poker after having played the game on the Internet for three years? Or why actor Ben Affleck won a major open poker tournament this year? Can you imagine somebody taking up basketball three years ago and suddenly becoming the leading scorer in the NBA? Or Affleck winning the Buick Open?

pasty poker pudges

Maybe he should pray. God: "Look, let's put the whole Fallujah thing on hold. I need to make sure Phil gets a six here."