January 18, 2008

Silly Human Tricks: Cowboy Poker

By Stan Dyer

With the National Western Stock Show making its annual trip to the Mile High City, it seems fitting to talk about the wildest eight seconds in sports. No, I am not talking about bull riding. Those guys still have enough sense to start out on top of the bull. I am talking about the new, unusual sport of Cowboy Poker. To the sane, Cowboy Poker makes any other Rodeo event look like a walk in the park.

It all starts with four contestants willing to risk life and limb for a couple of bucks. In the interest of safety, all four put on normal protective gear before entering a Rodeo ring. In the ring is a table, four chairs and a deck of cards. Each contestant grabs a seat, picks up a card hand, and then waits for an angry bull to come into the ring. It does not really matter what cards each contestant holds, (maybe Tarot cards?), unless someone believes he can bluff a bull. What matters in this game of poker is how long each contestant can remain seated. While the bull proceeds to prepare everything in the ring for recycling, the last contestant to leave his seat wins the pot. With any luck, there will be enough money there to cover the cost of the ride to the hospital. As for the surgical removal of that bull from his "you know where", he is going to need a good insurance policy.

I do not know who thought of this event, how drunk he was at the time, or how he got out of his strait jacket long enough to pen the idea. I do know there is little chance of this ever becoming an Olympic event, even though people seem to love watching it. I am also fairly certain the history of this sport cannot be traced back to the Old West. Even though cowboys in the Old West occasionally fired a rifle or revolver at one another, none were so lacking in sense or broke enough to be compelled to sit down to a game of poker in a Rodeo ring containing an angry bull.

Many people have long believed that Rodeo developed as a way to further "sanitize" the gene pool, and Cowboy Poker may be modern proof of that. As if the running of the bulls in Pamplona were not enough, now America has its own, special way of proving that we are all, indeed, evolved from a lower order of life, and the process may not be complete. In the annals of Stupid Pet Tricks, this Silly Human Trick has to rank near the top in its category. Although they cannot be confirmed, there are rumors floating around that the same promoters are considering "Bronco Poker", "I-70 Poker" and "Zoo Poker" as future events. Heaven help us.