Meet our writers

Win $1,000







Reflections October 2016

Phase Three

When Games Become Too Fan-tastic

By Arnold Bornstein

I still vividly remember the card games he described to me, of men expecting to go into combat in the very near future and of the incredible sums of money they would pour into the pots. To them, of course, the bills were literally just pieces of paper.

When you think about the games that people play or watch, evidently for enjoyment and recreation, you're sometimes surprised by the anger and anguish that results.

We have experienced fans screaming furiously at pro games, cursing after we make a bad shot in golf, tennis, bowling or whatever, and players losing their temper during card games.

One time when I was a newspaper reporter, and working in the courthouse press room in New York, mini-violence suddenly erupted at the usual afternoon poker game that had been going on in a corner with relative quietness. I looked up from my desk and typewriter just in time to see a guy I worked with at the same paper doing a head-first slide across the table. He reached up and grabbed a lawyer by the throat. The attorney had been sitting in on the game during a lull in courtroom activities.

A city cop who had been chatting with reporters in the press room also helped restrain both players. After some mumbled apologies, sheepish grins and attempts at humor, the game quickly resumed. Those guys took their poker seriously.

I used to be a regular in a Thursday night poker game in the clubhouse of the adult community in New Jersey, where we live. I witnessed temper flare-ups, heated arguments and shouting, but it never went beyond the verbal stage. Nowadays, the closeness of Atlantic City casinos no doubt influences the games that some of us presently play.

I think it's obvious that there is nothing inherent in poker or any card game that would get people in an uproar. On the contrary, camaraderie, socializing and eager anticipation seem to be integral parts of card games – whether it's poker, gin, canasta, pinochle, bridge or mah-jong or whatever. Technically, mah-jong isn't a "card" game, but early in my childhood I became familiar with the sound of tiles clicking around me.

Perhaps the arguments or discussions at these games are merely attributable to human nature – to the desire to be a winner, to the desire to show others that we know what we are talking about. Whether at work or at home or while playing or watching a game, we seem to have a competitive edge to us – a need to do something well. And when something goes wrong, well, you know the feeling!

On my ship, when I was in the Navy, there was a betting game we called the "anchor pool." The time when a Navy ship enters a port and drops its anchor or is tied up at a dock is recorded in the ship's log. The 60 possible minutes that the event could occur were divided into 60 chances. Each bettor would put a specified amount of money into the pool. The main winner would have the winning minute – the minute that the anchor was dropped or the ship was docked.

One wonders about any meaning in poker and gambling and luck – and luck in life itself. Regarding the handful of coins or a substantial amount that may change hands, I've watched the big games, and as a young boy I remember watching my mother and her friends using pennies when they played poker.

My late brother was with the 8th Armored Division (tanks) in Northern France during World War II, until he was transferred to a desk job in London. I still vividly remember the card games he described to me, of men expecting to go into combat in the very near future and of the incredible sums of money they would pour into the pots. To them, of course, the bills were literally just pieces of paper.

Writer James Jones, in his novel, From Here to Eternity (later made into a famed movie with Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr), elaborately described an Army poker game and related it to the meaning of chance in life. Paraphrasing Jones, he wrote that here, in these pieces of pasteboard being dealt face-down around the table, were the secrets of life and death and chance and the universe governed by the fickleness of fate. And if you could somehow penetrate the unreadability, you would be shaking hands with God.

 

I can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Meet Arnold