F, as in Funny

Warning: This column is X-rated. Or perhaps I should say, "F-rated." Yes, it's about that notorious f-word.

Before you faint, Barry, let me offer some reasons for not killing this column. This is a poker magazine, not the Girl Scout Gazette. All mainstream magazines now print this word when necessary, although usually in abbreviated form. Some major publications, such as Vanity Fair, unblinkingly spell it out. We no longer live in the Victorian era when uttering this word carried an escalating series of penalties, the starting punishment being beheading. Books using the f-word are no longer banned in Boston. Mario Savo's free speech movement at Berkeley and comedian Lenny Bruce did much to change our prudish attitude toward naughty words.

However, my main point is that this is not my usual tomfoolery, but an entirely serious column. The f-word was thrust into the poker spotlight during the last Tournament of Champions, and I feel it my responsibility as a respected poker authority to examine the ramifications of this sensitive topic and offer some solutions. As you may know, Scotty Nguyen was hit with a 10-minute penalty at the final table for uttering the expletive after "Miami" John had the gall to raise his blind. And John Bonetti got the same timeout earlier after a floorman overheard him employ the f-word (no, not "fuhgedabout it") during a break!

These developments ignited the usual endless arguments on rgp, the poker newsgroup. Some thought poker tournaments needed cleaning up to gain wider acceptance and sponsorship, and that obscenities picked up on national broadcasts would not help the cause. Others argued that poker and a degree of rowdiness go hand in hand, and a completely sanitized version of the game would not be as much fun. Poker, one woman wrote, is not a tea party.

There was, however, general agreement that Bonetti's penalty was over the top. One poster suggested that, in all fairness, penalty time incurred during a break should be served during the break. Sure. I mean, what's next: following players into the men's room to monitor their speech? So, let me propose a reasonable compromise. If a player earns 10 minutes for saying the f-word at the table, how about reducing penalty time by one minute for every 20 feet he is away from the table?

Another problem is determining intent and degree of harshness when a player invokes the word. It does, after all, come in many forms, as another rgp poster pointed out, humorously if not originally. It is a "magical" word, he wrote, that can describe pain, pleasure, love, and hate, and one that can fall into many grammatical categories: noun, adjective, adverb, active verb, inactive verb, transitive verb, intransitive verb, and secondary conjunctive. To illustrate the grammatical usage of the word in sexual connotation, he gave examples using "Mary" as the central figure.

"Where can I find Mary?" someone else responded.

This, you understand, is not a situation that can be addressed as definitively as when I analyzed the card-throwing-penalty rule. That was an either-or situation. Fairly or unfairly, no matter how hard cards are flung deliberately, or how softly they are dropped accidentally, they either stay on the table or land on the floor. There has yet to be an authenticated case in which cards hung in midair. When cardrooms get around to implementing my suggestions (such as radar guns to determine the speed of the flung cards), all injustices will end.

The f-word situation, unfortunately, is more complicated. For example, it can involve delicate nuances of speech. Take what happened to Stan Goldstein, a Los Angeles tournament player. He is still steamed for getting a penalty when he uttered what he insists was the euphemism "fudge," although the dealer testified otherwise. And Rich Korbin, a player and account executive for Card Player, wonders if a player with a Boston accent would get a penalty if he announced that he had "fawh kings." The solution? Mandatory hearing aids for all dealers.

"Miami" John has his own horror story to tell. One time when a player made a bizarre play during a tournament, he muttered, half to himself, "What the f – – – is going on?" and the dealer reported him. Later, when another player yelled, "F – – -!" after losing a pot, the dealer merely laughed. John righteously demanded equal justice. "The only time I've ever gotten a penalty and the only time I've turned anybody in," he said.

TOC President Chuck Humphrey has a somewhat cavalier attitude about the f-word. When Tournament Director Denny Williams announced the penalty rule at The Bicycle Casino, Humphrey jokingly asked if he would be punished if he referred to someone stirring cement with a fork as a "mortar-forker." (Yes, I know Tom McEvoy once used that in his column, but how many people read his column compared to mine?) Overall, Humphrey thinks the main purpose of the f-word penalty rule should be to defuse tense situations when one player threatens another by snarling, "F – – – you." TOC Tournament Director David Lamb, on the other hand, believes that prohibiting its usage in any form is a matter of civility.

If you are getting lost by now, so am I. As Mike Caro might have said, "Where the f – – – was I?"

OK, let me clear this whole business up. The Richter scale determines the intensity of earthquakes, and I propose a similar scale to grade various forms of the f-word. For example, a simple "F – – -" after a player loses a pot would earn a simple two-minute penalty. Four minutes for the more colorful "F – – – me." Six minutes when used as an adjective, such as "F – – – ing cards." One minute for "F – – – ing dealer." Eight minutes for the overly extravagant "Unf – – – ingbelievable." Ten minutes for saying "F – – – you!" to another player. Two minutes for saying it to a dealer. Finally, 20 minutes when the word is used in combination with another player's mother. But only three minutes if it's the dealer's mother.

Since standardized rules are now being adopted by casinos, I strongly recommend that these guidelines be included.

There, that wasn't too bad, was it, Barry? All in all, I think that Jan Shulman was a lot grosser in her column on grooming when she wrote about players needing to change their underwear.