While making my daily Facebook perusal (using my son’s account since I have none personally) I happened on spirited give and take today between John DeBartola and Scott Hunt, two candidates for Cambria County Commissioner.
Having previously written here of my plans to vote for DeBartola and Joseph Taranto in the upcoming primary election, I was mildly interested and amused.
It took me back to my days playing online poker – when it was legal – and experiences with the chat function on those sites. Some players used the chat opportunity to offer the obligatory congratulation NH (nice hand) or to chit-chat between actions.
Others used it as a tool to get under the skins of opposing players, to get them off their game. And some were just random fools eager to argue anything and everything.
Often, I’d minimize the chat window to avoid distraction. But sometimes, when I was feeling puckish (a reference to being playfully mischievous, not feeling like a hockey disc) I would spar verbally.
I once had a stupid fellow go all-in preflop with 7-2, the absolute worst starting hand in Texas hold’em poker. I had pocket aces (the best hand), went all-in myself, and eventually lost when he ended up with two pair, 7s and 2’s.
I was about 87 percent to win preflop, but lost. It happens. But the moron used chat to chastise me for a bad call, saying he had more outs, the three remaining 7’s and three 2’s in the deck vs. my two remaining aces.
It didn’t register with this guy that I already was way ahead and he needed to hit two of those six possible outs to win, and so was a massive underdog when the money went into the pot.
His response, symptomatic of such chat warriors, was “Your a moron.”
My reply was that since he’d written the possessive “Your a moron” instead of the proper contraction “You’re (as in you are) a moron” this indicated which of us truly was the moron.
Back to Facebook, and the exchange of candidate countercharges, ranging from backroom dealings and “non truth” to sexual orientation: At one point Hunt signed off with “I’ve spoke my peace. Have a great day, John.”
I’m not sure about which allegations are true. I am sure it should have been “spoken” as in present perfect tense and piece, not peace.
As you were, guys.
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