Joker Journal
By Dave Cinch
(All Rights Reserved)

"Shenanigans" Called at Canterbury Park

A while back a buddy of mine, The Notorious D.U.G. himself, was playing hold'em at Canterbury Park and things weren't going his way. He was about $2000 stuck in a $30-$60 game, and couldn't win a hand.

Being such a ham/natural born captain of every table he ever played at, he straddled a pot and announced "Shenanigans" to the table. Which meant: "Anything goes." He was shifting his lock down nut game into overdrive, and was initiating a reckless attack on every chip on the table. Any hand, any angle, any move was in play until he got even.

A bunch of oohs and aahs were heard around the table, as everybody suddenly was stricken with fear. Except for King Nick from out of Dayton, that is. He immediately declared "Tomfoolery" on the table hisself, took his turn on the live straddle, and played every hand with abandon too. For once in his young life King Nick was gambling.

So you had two professional lockdown artists on tilt, a couple of other pros licking their chops, three or four crusty veterans reaching for their blood pressure medicine over the suddenly ferocious action, and a couple suckers who all of a sudden tightened up to try to snap off the tilting pros. So the game, as they are wont to do, had changed radically in an instant with the calling of "Shenanigans."

What happened of course over the next several hours is A-A got beat by A-4 off-suit, K-K got beat by 4-9 off-suit, J-J lost to a set of deuces on the river, etc. etc. ad nauseam. In short, no hand was safe. There were14 different rulings required from the floor (over the angles) and three dealers had been treated so rudely they were in tears - including one who was a 300 pound ex-Hell's Angel. You're playing some poker when you hurt one of those guys feelings. It was brutal. You've heard of going to a boxing match and a hockey game broke out? Well, this was a poker game until a hold'em shootout broke out.

Don't worry, Doug and Nick got winners on all the worst hands you've ever seen. In their brief cameos as maniacs they filled up three or four racks each and headed out to party - where Negreanu was in wait, and was buying the rounds. They toasted into the wee hours of the morning over what a blast it was to be a sharpie. I'm telling you poker isn't fair. A man declares shenanigans and loses his mind, wins all the chips, and then goes out and celebrates? I got a problem with that.

Eventually both Doug and Nick returned home from the trip showing handsome profits and donning their Canterbury Park gear, like it was all in a days work. It ain't right. It goes to show you: there's nothing more dangerous than a professional maniac. I'd rather see a devil on a unicycle than one of those guys again.

You may be asking yourself: What is Cinch talking about…what in the world is a professional maniac? Good question. Stu Ungar was a professional maniac. Gus Hansen is a professional maniac. Layne Flack is a professional maniac. Daniel Negreanu is a professional maniac. Notorious D.U.G., before his retirement, was a professional maniac. King Nick, for a fleeting moment, joined the ranks of professional maniacs. I spent years trying to get in the club myself but I never made it, and I ended up just being a regular maniac - which was a tough break for me. But it's not the only tough break I've ever had. And I've been in lots of clubs, thank you, but the problem is I hate to stay in a club that would keep me as a member. Now that there's one I'm dying to join for life I'm shut out. It's brutal.

But it's nothing to be embarrassed about that I couldn't get in, because the professional maniacs just might have one of the most exclusive clubs on earth. By definition, a professional maniac is a player who is using his maniacal impulses to win instead of to lose. That, ladies and gentleman, is hard on all the other player's chips. Seeing a devil on a unicycle with three black cats crossing your path is better news than running into one of these guys at the poker table. I guarantee it.