18 JAN 08: FIRST-TIME PLUCKY

"I'm a noh-vis," the woman sitting across from me said late Thursday night.

"I would pronounce it novice," I answered, "but I'm from up north."

The woman who said this was drunk, by her own admission. She also used expletives several times, during our Thursday night poker outing near the Civic Center - so you certainly could not pronounce her as having "no vice."

First to the scoreboard: Your blogger is now a FOUR-time winner in the Thursday night poker tournament at Lil' Kim's Cove! I outlasted about 25 other players, in a marathon that went four-and-a-half hours. And they say poker's not a sport -- this contest lasted longer than any college football bowl game.

But this entry is NOT really about me. It's about the other people around me at the final table. One of the last four players was admittedly drunk, and another acted that way as the night ended. The fact that they lasted so long at a poker tournament is a bit like how Mickey Mantle reportedly hit some of his home runs - by hitting the middle baseball.

The woman I'm calling Hope already seemed to be over the edge, when I was brought into the final table. When your favorite quote seems to be from country singer Gretchen Wilson -- "Gimme a h**l, yeah!" - something doesn't seem quite right.

"What's your name?" Hope asked as a group of us joined the final table.

"Richard."

"Is everybody here named Richard?!" The man to my right happened to have that name as well.

"I don't know. I didn't take roll."

Hope said this was her first poker tournament, yet she had a sizeable number of chips from winning several hands. Some regular players who make the Columbus Poker Tour rounds had more than the ignominy of losing to a rookie -- they had to explain how they were outplayed by a drunk rookie, and a female one at that.

"I can play the cards," Hope assured me a couple of times during the final table. "You've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em," she added -- apparently not realizing Kenny Rogers had sung that advice from the Lil Kim's Cove jukebox only a minute before.

Hope didn't seem to lie about her card-playing ability. She never asked for help with the hands she was dealt, but she clearly needed help with other things. When you slowly count pretend five-dollar chips to make an 80-dollar bet.... well, Hope didn't miscount, but we all watched her very carefully.

The number of players at the final table slowly diminished, but Hope's big chip stack kept her in the game. In fact, she took a hand off after announcing, "I'm going to go p**." If you didn't know better, you might have thought Doris Roberts from "Everybody Loves Raymond" was playing....

A woman sitting to Hope's right quickly pointed out her language was not exactly "ladylike" - and Hope corrected her declaration to "use the ladies' room." But then, Lil' Kim's Cove is essentially a bar. And it doesn't serve ladylike drinks, such as cosmos and martinis.

Hope is quite the single woman, with a couple of dogs she described as "the bomb" to keep her company. "I don't have any grandkids, I don't have any kids...." Of course, you're far less likely to have the former if you don't have the latter.

A scary moment occurred with only four players left in the poker contest. Hope started having sharp pains, breathed heavily and seemed on the verge of throwing up on the card table. Of course, the manly man in me moved the playing cards a bit to the side to avoid serious harm....

Thankfully, Hope did NOT throw up. "Have you ever had back spasms?" she said later. I never have, but another poker player had.

"Do you need some water?" a concerned woman asked -- which brought a perhaps predictable answer.

"I need a beer."

After a short pause and NO beer, Hope was well enough to keep playing - but with only four players left, she eventually faced some key decisions about her hands. "I need a moment," she said after another player made a big bet.

"Patience is a virtue, I've heard," I told her.

"I don't have any virtues," Hope answered. She actually seemed a bit smug and proud about that.

Someone had to eliminate Hope from the poker game - and of course, that was me. When a jack fell on the "river card" to give me an ace-high straight, I bet 400 pretend dollars, and Hope couldn't beat it. I'd estimated the number of chips she had in making that bet - but her loss of 400 left her with five. At least on "The Price is Right," I'd be considered a hero....

"I can't play with five," Hope said. The minimum bet at this point was 100, and she technically could have stayed in for at least one more hand. But then an amazing thing happened. A player to my right named Jay got up and gave her a five-dollar bill. If this woman didn't drive to the bar, this would help pay for something much safer.

Hope felt good about finishing fourth in her first-ever poker tournament. I would have walked home feeling good about it as well. But at least I would have been assured of walking home in a straight line - and I'm wondering how good Hope feels as she wakes up this morning.

I know, I know - it's easy to crack jokes about someone who's drunk. Foster Brooks made a career out of playing a "loveable lush," until such humor suddenly became improper and wrong. But it's also easy to use a drunk person's comments and actions as "straight lines" for jokes. I'd test the drunkenness of other college students by holding up fingers and asking, "How many toes am I showing?"

My longtime church pastor once said there are few things uglier to see than a drunken woman. I can understand what he means, after sitting across from Hope. Even though we're both never-married single people, I wouldn't want to date her after seeing what I saw Thursday night. But perhaps others would, based on another country song - "The Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time."

So poker night explains our late post time - and now let's quickly wrap things up with a few Thursday news highlights:

+ Uptown Columbus held its first-ever "annual meeting" at the Trade Center. The special guest was Joseph Riley, who's credited for reviving downtown Charleston, South Carolina. We'll see if Columbus goes all the way in following Charleston's example - and we'll someday have minor league baseball at Richard Bishop Ballpark.

(Reggie Richards of Columbus South Inc. attended the Uptown Columbus meeting. She told WRBL the south side is "not the redheaded stepchild anymore." If anything, it's turning into "the El Nino" of Columbus - the child speaking a language northsiders can't understand.)

+ The Georgia General Assembly held its annual "Sportsman's Day." One person told GPB's "Lawmakers" Georgia is now the number-one destination state for hunters. Just watch the presidential candidates come here over the next couple of weeks, hunting for votes.

+ Instant Message to AirTran Airlines: Now that's a funny billboard! That one near downtown Atlanta which says, "Save water. Shower in another city."

COMING THIS WEEKEND: E-mail which could spark a new library discussion....

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