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Rating: Five men of varying ages are dressed like brain-dead individuals: frozen in the '80s, they seem to have been suddenly thawed on the chairs of a table with 2 cards in front of their ring-filled paws. Lights more than dim, let's say you can't see a damn thing, but these 10 pairs of fat retinas don't care and are covered by dark lenses. Who knows, maybe they are vampires: that's their skin color. It's sweaty, and there's a palpable tension in the air. And it couldn't be otherwise because, in fact, it's considered a sport. Be careful, they get pissed off even if you disagree on the fact that it's a psychologically and physically challenging, almost exhausting competitive activity. Sitting for countless hours at a table and finally getting up with chair-shaped buttocks is not for everyone. And I, dear sports enthusiasts, blindly trust in your experience honed over the years and rather than refute it by experiencing such torture myself, I'm ready to cut my balls off with the claws of the first stray cat that meows at me.
A Yankee nerd a few years ago won a couple, maybe three, if not even four or perhaps five, million dollars in Las Vegas becoming the world champion. The translation of his surname into Italian is "money maker." So, summing up, Cristoforo Money Maker by spending 30 dollars online earned a mountain of them. Delirium. For this reason, millions of people around the globe have started playing furiously every evening. And instead of having sex, going out with friends, getting drunk, going to the cinema, reading a book, sleeping, jerking off, or simply being with family, they perch themselves at their PCs playing poker for money just like we're invited to do among other human cases by Miccoli, Buffon, and the likes. With moderation, mind you, lots of moderation this TV broadcasts on a loop poker for 24 hours a day from the main event to the condominium tournament. From young internet users to housewives. Because you shouldn't overdo it, and in the end, it's just a hobby.
But the true poker player here would disagree because Texas Hold'em poker is a science that doesn't rely on mere luck. There's mathematics, statistics, psychology, the ability to change your game, the ability to bet, etc... More than just a hobby: in poker in the end, only the best always win. Without knowing how to read or write, a stranger to the environment could nonetheless point out the fact that in all other sports it's impossible to become a world champion by learning to play on the Playstation at night. Because on my PC screen Messi, MJ, Federer, Rossi, Phelps, etc... don't give me a damn.
A few weeks ago, I discovered this channel that broadcasts poker tournaments for 24 hours and I must admit that initially I had a blast enjoying occasionally this nice, and almost endless, parade of human cases, most of whom have no sense of shame. They may be millionaires, but they look like a parody of the best Corrado Guzzanti, yet, hard as it is to believe, they seem real. Milk-colored nerds Vs adults afflicted by Peter Pan syndrome, obese youngsters Vs knobby elders making fools of themselves at a table. People blaming bad luck if a 7 comes out instead of an 8 or putting their hands on their heads and celebrating like they've just run 100 meters in 8 seconds. At this moment, I'm dying of laughter, for example, at this 140-kilo walrus, a champion, with headphones and sunglasses and Robocop's movements and I'm laughing even more at the Italian player who in the "I wish I could" tournament tries to imitate him by clumsily moving the chips and, chewing like a ruminant, mumbles in a thick Roman accent English terms like "reisse" - "ander de ganne" etc... Commentators who act all-knowing and witty with exposed hands, are like big shot professors who never make a mistake and who should have a billion euros in the bank, so infallible they are.
Finally, what makes me grimly laugh is that for a considerable number of people that walrus who over the years of serious sport has developed a chair-shaped ass and who will hardly reach 60 without 2/3 heart attacks can truly be some sort of idol, a final goal of their existence. Once upon a time, it was musicians, athletes, writers, actors, "artists." I have never been passionate about cards, but as a pastime with friends, poker, like its other suit siblings, can provide hours of fun. But if we also define it as a sport and push it to the extreme with advertising and a specialized TV as if it were a goal to pursue for easy money. If it is pushed in this way to enrich the state's revenues and make our existence even more vegetative and impoverished (in an economic and social sense). No, then I shake my head and couldn't care less about the insults you'll rightly give me for this intentionally biased rant.
I eagerly await Chess & Bridge TV/Curling & Bocce TV/Trivial Pursuit & Monopoly & Risiko TV/Cherry Pit Spitting TV/Scratching My Balls on the Couch for 24 Hours TV/Sack Race TV/Beer and Sausages TV/Burping All the Words TV, etc...
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