WELLESLEY, MA — Amid the crushing realization that I cannot do simple math, I lost my life savings at the Wellesley Poker Club. Wellesley Clubus Pokerum, which I can only assume is Latin for “no-fun-money-stealing-LOSERS,” is a new campus org promoting “fun,” community building and gambling. Degenerates.
I arrived at my first meeting optimistic. I was handed a little plastic baggie of chips and assured that the game is “mostly intuitive” by a line of similarly-dressed upperclassmen wearing heavy eyeliner. Looking back, I think this was an intimidation tactic.
I told my first table that I was “really good at reading people” because I am an empath. This manifested as me making prolonged, unsettling eye contact with my classmates while they quietly took my money. At one point, someone said, “You’re the little blind,” and I nodded like that meant anything to me (maybe because of my glasses? Kind of rude …). Soon thereafter, I pushed in a stack of what I thought were my ugliest chips, only to be told I had “raised aggressively.” Nobody has called me aggressive before.
At one point in the evening, I attempted to bluff (because I had seen it in the movies). My bluff consisted of saying “I’m bluffing” — a move that I hoped would come off as reverse psychology but was, in fact, just regular psychology. I think the fact that I said “go fish” after folding one of my first hands tipped them off.
I ended the night having lost $7000, my housing slot, a half-used loco punch pass, and my dignity. See you next Thursday.
