Tales from a Home Game - Talkin' Trash

Let's just assume for a minute that, instead of porridge, Goldilocks broke into the three bears' house to find trash talk. And instead of the three bowls, there were actually three places where you could play poker. A casino, online, and a home game. Well, the place that would have just the right amount of trash talk would be the bowl with the home game full of porridge in it. Or maybe the home game is one of the comfy beds. Yeah. Who's with me?

To be honest, I don't really condone being an ass at the tables, ever. But, if you're going to do it, the home game is the perfect environment. Why? Well, first of all, doing it online is cheap. And it's far too easy for things to escalate. All too often, things get threatening, and then it's "your Mom" this and "I'll kill your dog" that, and before you know it, people are resorting to making fun of each others' grammatical errors.

The point is that there is way too much trash talk that goes on online. We want quality over quantity. I'll speak more on that later.

As far as casinos go, let's face it, most people are way too big of a pansy to trash-talk a lot in casinos. And those who aren't are just flat out assholes. I can't tell you how many times Scott Huff and I have been at Hollywood Park Casino together, playing with the scum of the Earth, and Scott hangs his head in embarrassment whenever I decide to pull my typical "Hey, buddy, how you enjoying that pork fried rice over there. You like it? It's good? You enjoying it? I raise." Plus, let me be the first to say that when you're sitting at a $2-$4 limit table, wearing a pair of Foakleys and you ask the old lady sitting next to you if her tea tastes as good as your ass is in her face - you are officially an asshole.

However, when it's your best friend/homoerotic frat brother at the table, it's a totally different story. There is a time and a place for everything. And the home game is the perfect time, and place for trash talk.

If the TV show Jackass has taught us something, it's that almost anything is a good idea after you've sniffed enough glue. But it's also taught us that being mean to your friends is A-OK, and just like poker, can possibly make you some money.

The home game is a relatively safe environment. It's about the camaraderie and time spent with friends as much as it is about poker. Unless I see an opening for a tremendously sweet burn, I tend to stay out of it for the most part. As a floorman/participant in home games for almost three years now, I've come across a lot of good and bad trash talk. As a result, I've come up with a list of rules that'll make you the Johnny Knoxville of the group: a badass, but still somehow very likeable and sexually attractive in an animalistic, but nongay way.

"It's all in the reflexes"
Like most things, timing is everything. I'm all for some good-natured ribbing, but there are some things that just aren't cool. Don't mess with someone after he's lost a big hand, and especially don't mess with someone after he's been busted. At that point, the game is over, and if the new game he wants to play is "Punch-the-big-mouth-in-the-face-opoly," I really couldn't blame him.

"Win the crowd and you will win your freedom."
Honestly, the key to being the bad guy everybody likes is that you keep everyone you're not making fun of laughing the entire time. Earn the good favor of the rest of the players at the game, and people will look forward to whatever it is you're going to say next. You do have to be careful not to fall into the following traps:

"Yeah. It's quantity not quality." "She meant quality not quantity."
Nobody likes a guy who won't shut up. Even coming from someone who's as hilarious as me, not everything I want to say (or write) is comedic gold. As a trash talker, choose your battles wisely. If you're running off at the mouth, talking shit from the moment you walk in the door, pretty soon you're going to get on everybody's nerves, and they're going to point the cannon at you. Nobody likes the Saturday Night Live sketch where some idiot says, "Whaddya got, seven-deuce offsuit?" for seven-and-a-half minutes. Sure, there are some chuckles along the way, and eventually you laugh a few times because you can't believe they're still going at it, but eventually it's so bad that you're tuning in to MADtv. The only way to avoid this is to make sure your shit is short, to the point, and definitely not annoying.

"Sweep the legs, Johnny"
But this is not to say you can't get personal. It's OK to get a little dirty. Sweep the legs; just don't kick him in the balls. Don't be afraid to kick up a little dirt from the past. A bad beat. A publicly drunken projectile-vomiting spectacle. All fair game. Just don't bring up a guy's dead mother. I learned this one the hard way. And it leads to the next pointer:

"I'm fuckin' kidding with you! You fuckin' shoot the guy?"
Quality and dirty do not mean "mean." I know that's a confusing double word, but they're homonyms. Get over it. OK. Fine. Quality and dirty do not equate to being mean. Being mean is oftentimes funny, and funny things are often mean, but the two aren't mutually exclusive, and so should go the home game banter. Like the aforementioned quote references, no one wants to be the guy who ruins everybody's laughing and good times by shooting someone in the face. Cruelty and racism are two things that immediately come to mind. I can remember getting more than a few groans after saying that a flop of all spades reminded me of "the backseat of an LAPD squad car." Jokes about AIDS are also a race, at best. No pun intended.

"This is hockey, OK? It's not rocket surgery."
All right, so it's not hockey. But the sentiment is more fitting than you'd realize. Trash talk is not like fishing with dynamite. Sure, if you do it that way, you might catch a lot of fish, but you run the risk of mucking up the entire lake, and even worse, overturning your own boat. But, if you check out everything listed above, it's more like surgery. It's about skilled, calculated slices, meant to dissect another human being slowly and almost painlessly. The key is to cut out their hearts, without them even knowing it. If you keep them laughing the whole time, you'll surgically remove one heart, but leave everyone else…in stitches! Pun most definitely intended.

What does this all mean? Well, let me tell you a story. When I was in college, I played on an intramural basketball team with Scott Huff and Alex Henriquez - two of Card Player's finest writers - where I was, at best, a below-average player. I clocked about a minute-and-a-half of floor time per game. Since I knew I would probably never even score a basket, I got myself into the record books the only way I knew how: by calling everyone on the other team, the ref, and the spectators faggots until I got a technical foul. Then I would follow it up by taking off my jersey, trying multiple times to get it stuck on the hoop, and strutting out, shirtless, into a wintry Boston night. To me, scoring the game-winning point wouldn't have been as fulfilling as what I had accomplished.

Additionally, it's clear from these articles that I am, at best, a below-average poker player. Talking trash is sometimes used by other players as a tactic - or an angle, if you will - designed to confound and frustrate their opponents by getting them to tilt and make bad calls. For me, though, getting someone to tilt often ends up in my inducing them to make a horrendous call that almost always ends justly: With my backtalk being rewarded by getting sucked out on, big time. Instead, I actually prefer to use the opportunity to irritate friends and neighbors as a way to enhance the game. Well, not the game so much, but my own personal enjoyment. I'll probably never be a good poker player, but thanks to the rules above, and the ability to talk trash, I'll always have fun - even when I'm busted, and strutting out shirtless.