Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Idle Hands ...

... are the devil's workshop ...

So my wife and I have gotten kinda interested in watching tournament poker. Texas Hold-'em, and if you don't know the game but saw the most recent James Bond movie, that's what they were playing.

What interests me more than the game is watching the players fiddle with their poker chips.
They twirl them, shuffle them, bounce and pop them around. All those hours at the table gives them practice time, and as an old coin magic guy, I find this more interesting than the cards.

Some of the players are celebrities -- also have a lot of time on their hands -- and the current hot player among the women is Jennifer Tilly. Impossible to spot a tell on her face. I dunno if that's because she's an actress or her face is shot up with Botox -- or both.

Anyway, I decided to get some poker chips and learn some of the tricks. I can already do the basic simple stuff, the thumb roll, the roll and twirl, with three chips, the knuckle roll, fingertip roll, like that. First of the new tricks is the shuffle, and I'm starting with six.

If you want to see some really sharp guys, check out YouTube. If my blog'll let me, here's my early attempt ...


2 comments:

ShaneShock said...

I think Jennifer Tilly is naturally expressionless.

Mr. Perry, I read your Alien books back in my Navy days, back when Aliens was my all-time favorite movie (it still ranks very high on my favorites). I think I still have the now-tattered paperbacks stored somewhere. Finding your blog returned me to those books, which returned me to where I was and what I was doing when I read them, which returned me to some good times and old friends, friends I have not thought about in years. I wanted to thank you.

I'll look for you on the shelf the next time I am at the bookstore, and when I find myself on the bookshelf, I hope you will look for me.

SS

Ed said...

Jennifer Tilly and her distracting gifts - I am up sometimes late and see the Poker After Dark. I like the Harman gal. The recent movie Lucky You - not "totally" bad - each poker game shown has many professional poker players at the table with Bana and/or Duvall. Has some interesting extras on the DVD with the professionals talking about the game. I think it would be fun to play sometime.----Let me know if you get a game going.