Hats Off at the Duloc World Poker Series

By The Mad Hattery, Officially Unofficial Columnist of Cards, Chaos, and Curious Chapeaux

Oh what a hand it was, what a hand! Not just the hand of cards but the hand of fate, the hand of fortune, and perhaps the hand of someone reaching for a hat they ought not wear. Four sat at the table, and four is a funny number—it is not three, which is tidy, and not five, which is a proper tea party, but four, which always feels like one chair is about to tip.

Seated stiff as a marionette was Pinocchio “The Real Boy” Puppet, who swore his honesty was carved in oak. He grinned so wide his nose nearly poked the chandelier. A bluff? A truth? Oh my, his own face couldn’t decide.

Next was Humpty “Splat” Dumpty, wobbling like a bowl of custard on a galloping horse. He perched high, oh so high, on a cushion, for eggs rarely have legs to dangle. He clutched his chips as if they might keep him from falling. (Spoiler: they did not.)

Then there shimmered Sugar “Plum” Fairy, sugared and powdered, tossing glitter like confetti into the air. One flap of her wings and half the audience sneezed cinnamon. Sweet as treacle, sly as treacle too.

And looming, lurking, lording over the lot was Kaden “The Big Bad” Wolf, all fur and fangs and not a hat in sight—which I consider a grave sin, but one does not tell a wolf how to accessorize unless one wishes to be accessorized oneself.

The Last Deal

The dealer dealt. Cards clattered. Queens and tens and sevens danced a quadrille across the table. And then it began:

Pinocchio piped up, “I’ve got it!” His nose stretched like a bridge to tomorrow. Bluff, bluff, blustery bluff!

Humpty quavered, “I’m all in!” and chips spilled like yolk.

The Fairy raised daintily, wings aflutter, dusting the table with sparkle that made the chips look like sugared stone fruits.

And then the Wolf, oh the Wolf, he shoved it all in, paws like stormclouds sweeping chips into a mountain. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. Everyone felt the huff and the puff curling in their lungs.

The Unmasking of Hands

Pinocchio’s tens collapsed like rotten timber. Nose grew, table booed.

Humpty rolled out queens over tens, wobbling in delight—until he actually rolled right off his seat and cracked against the floor. “Oh the yolk of it all!” cried the crowd.

Sugar Plum twinkled triumphantly with eights full of queens. Sweet, sweeter, sweetest—until the Wolf spoke with his cards. Four sevens. Count them. One, two, three, four. The number four again! The wolfish grin said it all: the house, the crown, the glory, all his.

Curtain Call

Humpty lay scrambled, Pinocchio whittled down, Sugar dusted in defeat. And Kaden “The Big Bad” Wolf stacked his chips into a crown so tall it might have served as a hat, though not one I’d ever wear.

So the Duloc World Poker Series ends with a growl, a grin, and a pile of plums turned sour. Hats off to the champion, though he wore none. A crime against millinery, but a triumph in poker.

And that, dear readers, is the way the cards fall… and the eggs too. Perhaps a set of four isn’t so bad, after all.

— The Mad Hattery