The Penultimate Word

I’m writing this column from a room with no electricity. I’m using pencil and paper, which is unfortunate, because I can hardly read my own [something that looks like “diamond,” might be “vegetable.” Oh, now that I think about it, it’s probably “handwriting.”]. You see, I’m not allowed to touch a computer anymore. Not after what happened to me last semester.

Internet poker. It seems so easy. You type in a credit card number and voilà, you’re ready to play. But I’ve always kept myself away from those internet casinos. You see, I’m far too cheap even for the penny games. One of the chief reasons I like the internet is that you can do almost anything for free, and I hate to risk precious pennies on frivolous gambling. A penny saved is a penny earned, and a penny you find on the ground is one you don’t have to report on a Form 1040. Either way, you’re one step closer to a healthy 401(k). Or at least that’s what my father always told me as I tried desperately to color in peace for once.

While I never got the chance to color Popeye’s spinach red without getting financial advice, my taxing childhood did lead me to this deduction: saving is profitable. So, naturally, the surge in the popularity of poker had until recently left me in the dust. Now, I’m allergic to dust, so my pulmonologist suggested I take up the game. And who am I to contradict a pulmonologist?

I started learning No-Limit Texas Hold’em in the greatest poker school in the world: Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown. There, my favorite D-, C-, and former B-list celebrities fight it out weekly in the kind of unconscionably exciting entertainment only the Bravo network can offer. Bad calls, mediocre raises, decent folds and witty quips, all in one hour of television. What more could a man ask for?

Armed with the expert tutelage of Celebrity Poker hosts Phil Gordon and Dave Foley, I entered the poker world exuberant, ready and naive. Of course, I was still cheap. Luckily, a commercial for PartyPoker.net came on TV just at the moment of my contemplation. PartyPoker offered exactly what I needed, a place to play poker for “FREE!” I knew the site had to share my exuberance because the word “free” was all in caps, and I knew it had to share my readiness because the word “free” was followed by an exclamation point. But Party Poker shared not one ounce of my naiveté. No, it knew exactly what it was doing.

The promise of unlimited complimentary chips sucked me in. There’s no risk in unlimited free games, so why not just keep playing? Why not just keep playing … all night? Well, I’ll tell you why. One has classes. Classes and responsibilities. And one should probably also take a shower.

But hygiene aside, internet poker is a very real obsession. Once you learn the game, either from Celebrity Poker Showdown or from someone who knows what he’s doing, it’s difficult to stop. Sites like PokerLetter.org offer free newsletters on how to effectively cheat at free online poker, allowing you to win millions of fake dollars. And with unlimited free play and an addictive personality, a person such as myself can easily get trapped into playing long into the night, game after game after game.

As if that wasn’t enough, I even bought a book on poker. Thank Lady Luck, I had a Barnes ‘ Noble gift card. (I still refuse to spend money when I don’t have to.) World Series of Poker Champion Phil Hellmuth’s Bad Beats and Lucky Draws was a helpful, if not well-written, guide to my obsession. I signed back online with a new spring in my step, although I was actually sitting down. Suddenly I was winning hands left and right, although, again, I wasn’t actually moving. But I was better at internet poker. Much better. And why stop playing when you’re on a roll? By this point, I was up to thousands of pretend dollars, hustling others like me with pretend-poker addictions.

Which is why I’ve cut myself off. No more poker, no more internet, no more electricity until I feel I’m ready. America, we have a problem. We live in an addictive society. Today, people can get addicted to coffee, cartoons, candy and many other non-addictive substances once thought completely un-heinous. These things are heinous. They are quite heinous. So remember that too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Too much of a bad thing is also a bad thing. But a little bit of a bad thing is OK. Especially if you don’t get caught.

Ethan Rosenberg, a freshman in the College of Fine Arts, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at ethanri@bu.edu.