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| | March of the Donkeys | | |      |
By Dave Cinch
The Great Hold'em Explosion of the 21st Century – otherwise known as The March of the Donkeys – continues unabated.
They're stampeding to every casino, home game, and internet site on earth to bray, bluff, and “play the all-in game.” The donkeys have overpopulated their new and dangerous habitat – the poker rooms of the world.
Maybe National Geographic or I-Max or somebody will do a documentary about it.
Can you imagine a surround sound theatre featuring the remarkable goings on in today's poker rooms? Donkeys calling all-in with 8-10 suited before the flop because they saw Gus Hansen do it on TV; donkeys going into the tank to decide whether or not to post or wait for the button to go by to enter the game; donkeys bluffing at non-existent side pots with all-in wise guys holding the nuts; donkeys trying to do fancy chip tricks to prove they're not donkeys; donkeys who can't spell “poker face” wearing $800 Ray-Ban sunglasses at the table… Donkeys, donkeys, donkeys.
They're enough to make a half-assed rounder look like Stu Ungar.
I once tried to interview a donkey after his dramatic tournament flameout to try to understand where he was coming from.
“What were you thinking when you bluffed your stack into a non-existent side pot with three rocks all-in?” I asked.
“Hee-hee-hee-HEE-HAAAAAWWWWWW,” was all he said.
Which I thought pretty much said it all.
Even Mike Caro, with his admittedly brilliant poker philosophizing, couldn't have stated it any more eloquently.
Ask a donkey a question, and you're out of line if you're expecting anything but a donkey answer, was what I gleaned from the interview.
Yet proudly they march to their local (or cyber) poker rooms.
Boding most favorably for the future of poker is that donkeys – if they're anything – are stubborn.
They don't figure things out real quick and then change tack.
No, they'll generally stick with the same damn thing for several millenniums, at least.
So if you ask me to handicap it, the poker explosion isn't a fad.
The game is in good shape for eons to come.
And you know, when you stop and think about it, donkeys are remarkably well represented cross culturally.
They're international movie stars (“Shrek”), symbols of a floundering American political party, celebrated recipients of Year of the Donkey honors in Asia, esteemed beasts of burden and transport in developing countries, and on and on.
But nowhere has the ubiquitous donkey's appearance been more noteworthy than in the poker rooms of the world, where they've taken the game from a cloistered backroom hustle to being beamed around the world via satellite, where captivated donkeys of the future tune in enthralled.
Just where did the term “donkey” come from anyway? Who coined it? Can't be sure, but it comes from a long list of colorful terms to describe poker's also-rans.
From “huckleberry” in the old west, to “sucker,” to “fish,” to the currently favored “donkey.” In fact, “donkey” is so in vogue today that a highly educated man such as Mike Matusow apparently can't speak a sentence without using it at least three times.
If the Poker Congress banned the word one suspects “The Mouth” would become a mute.
He'd be like Curly of the “Three Stooges” without his trusty “Soy-tainly.” I know what I'm talking about on this whole hold'em craze – you can trust me on this – because I'm one of the donkeys.
Once known for hating hold'em and anybody who played it, I've had to join the hold'em movement to get my play in.
You got to drive hundreds of miles to find anything but a hold'em game nowadays, and with gas what it is, you'd practically have to ride a donkey around to stay in action.
So there I go right along with the herd, stampeding to the neighborhood hold'em joint to bray and whinny my way to a lighter bankroll.
Yep, I'm right in the middle of this thing.
I'm like imbedded in the march.
I'm on this story – the Donkey Trail – like Woodward and Bernstein were on Watergate.
So people may whisper “Here comes another Equus Assinus (the official donkey species),” when I buy in, but not when I can chalk up my losses to research and write it off.
Because all it will take is one more show – on the big screen this time – to immortalize the poker explosion.
“The March of the Donkeys,” produced, directed, and inadvertently starred in by yours truly, Dave Cinch, coming soon to theatres near you, is just the ticket.
If I put half the stuff donkeys do in it it'll make the penguin blockbuster look smalltime.
I'll have to raise some funds first for this upcoming epic, so I'll be hitting up most of my poker playing pals, and maybe a big name venture capitalist or two.
Don't even try to go the other way when you see me coming.
Just post it up and wish me luck.
See you at the Oscars.
Poker.
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