Poker jokes for retirement

I like jokes as much as the next guy. But some poker-related jokes have become so overused that I think we have to actually ban them from further use. I am hereby forming a new organization, Players for the Retirement of Old Poker Jokes (PROPJ, pronounced "prop-jay"). You can join simply by using the "comments" button to submit a candidate for permanent banishment from the game.

Here's my initial list:

Maybe the most common one pops up when a player wins a pot, but in the excitement of stacking up the chips forgets to return his cards to the dealer. When reminded of the need to do so, he says, "They're so good I want to use them again on the next hand!"

Not funny.

Once in a while two players will bet and raise each other with a lot of tension. Then finally when it's over, one of them reveals his hole cards, and the other, seeing them, scowls, says something like "You play that crap?" and turns over--the same hand.

Not funny.

Four or five people limp in. The subsequent three rounds of betting get checked all around. When the cards are turned over, somebody has just barely made a hand, like bottom pair with a bad kicker, and wins the pot. Some wise guy at the table will always say, "You had the nuts!"

Not funny.

A card gets accidentally exposed during the deal. The dealer shows it to everybody, announces that it will be the burn card and not in play. Inevitably, some wisecracker will say, "Well, that kills my hand," or "There goes my quads."

Not funny.

Either on the flop or when it turns out that it's a limped-in family pot before the flop, somebody who folded will ask, "Can I get my cards back?"

Not funny.

Somebody bets, say, $25. A player behind him will say, "I would have called $24, but $25 is way too much."

Not funny.

Any "joke" that involves the words "jack" and "off" in close proximity is

Not funny.

If you buy into a $100 tournament and start with, say, $2000 in tournament chips, saying that you're just going to cash them in and leave with your profit is

Not funny.

After the flop and the turn have put one card of each suit on the table, somebody will rap the table while saying, "I check my flush [or flush draw]."

Not funny.

Before folding a junk hand, a player will ask if he can double down, or make some other blackjack move.

Not funny.

Any oh-so-clever sexual double-entendre relating to "straddle" is officially declared to be...

Not funny.

A player facing, say, a $25 bet will toss out four red chips ($20), then realize his mistake, and add another one, at which point some other player will make the fake protest, "That's a string call!"*

Not funny.

In a no-limit game, one player declares himself to be all-in. The next one to act puts his hands behind his chip stacks, as if to push them forward, and says, "I'm all [pause] OUT," then folds.

Not funny.

There are many, many more of these. They all need to be done away with. I'm not sure I can stand to hear them for very much longer before I go postal at the table. So please join my new association by suggesting other lame, old poker jokes that just have to go. Maybe together we can get them banned forever. Violators will then be required to, I dunno, maybe clean up all the crap that's under the tables, or write their forbidden bad joke on a chalkboard a hundred times. (Suggestions for punishment for the unrepentant jokesters will also be gladly accepted in the comments section.)

For the good of poker, we PROPJ members must also be actively working to bring into use new material, stuff that's genuinely funny. We must take on the responsibility to elevate poker humor to lofty new heights.

For example, here's my favorite: After the flop, I have nothing--no pair and no draw. Somebody makes a big bet, and the action is to me. I ask the dealer, "How many more cards are there to come?" Of course he says "Two." I feign surprise and dismay, and say, "Oh, that's not nearly enough," and throw my cards in the muck.

Now that's funny!


*Explanation for the uninitiated: A "string bet" or "string raise" is when somebody puts out some amount of chips, then goes back to his stack to get more to add to it. Because some unethical players used to do this to watch for an opponent's reaction--then add more chips to the bet or raise if it appeared that the opponent didn't like the action--this is now universally proscribed. You have to either announce a specific amount in advance (in which case you can go to your chip stack as many times as needed to fetch the right amount of chips), or put whatever you're going to bet out in one motion. But for obvious reasons, just putting in a call of somebody else's bet doesn't have the same potential problems, so there's no prohibition against (and really no such thing as) a "string call."