Sunday, April 30, 2006

Captain Stubbing's Glass Eye

Catching up with my Pauly and I had a great laugh at this bit from Thursday's post:
I started up a conversation with the guy to my left who looked like Captain Stubbing from the Love Boat. I'm usually friendly at the table and old guys normally like to talk, especially if they are lonely or have wives that drive them nuts. I particularly like talking to the guy on my left to seek out information and get a better indication of the his style of play. Is he going to let me steal his blinds? Will my raises get him to fold a marginal hand? Has he been drinking? Running bad? Getting lucky? You'll never find out unless you open your mouth.

Within a few minutes he offered me $100 to guess which one of his eyes was a glass eye. I figured I was getting set up so I counter offered $20. He thought about it for a few hands then agreed. Capt. Stubbing and I stood up as I tried to win $20 guessing which eye was fake. It was his left eye and that was my initial gut reaction. According to Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, he said that we usually make up our minds within the first few seconds and that we should go with that gut feeling since more often than not, it's usually the correct. I inspected his right eye then left once again.

"It's your left eye," as I pointed to the eye that looked fake.

"You sure?" he said offering me a chance to change my mind. Capt. Stubbing tried to mess with my head.

"I'm positive," I answered confidently.

"OK, let's go," as he walked to the bathroom.

When we got in, Capt. Stubbing washed his hands then nonchalantly pulled his right eye out of the socket. I dropped a $20 bill on the counter and walked out. I'm running so bad in prop bets that I can't even pick out a glass eye.
Be sure to read the whole thing - especially the bit about "the tourist". That's a new phrase that I'll be adding to my poker lexicon.

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