One of the reasons maxims become maxims is because they express a general truth or rule of conduct, crystalized over time. An oft-repeated maxim heard in poker circles is: “Beware of the speech.” The idea being that when someone has too much to say during a hand, expressing either a shrugging reluctance to come in or attempting to talk someone into calling, he or she is likely holding something big. And it would do any poker player well to refresh or re-examine their understanding of this principle, particularly in those sociable friendly games when tongues wag as a matter of course and everyone seemingly has a story to tell.

Yet even in the midst of mindless blather one must maintain focus and separate the wheat from the chaff, the wheat in this instance being an occasion when someone isn’t just yapping but actually giving “the speech.” When someone gives the speech chances are that he or she is holding pocket aces or kings so unless you’ve got a real hand, stay away. On the other hand, even a speech-giver gets dinged on occasion and then feels doubly bad for having opened his mouth in the first place and opened the door to a jinx.

I played in a home game recently with a crew from that God-forsaken nowhere called Don Mills. Don’t get me started on Don Mills because I got very lost trying to get to this game and when I found out that Don Mills was the first planned community in Canada, I figured it must have been planned by men who had eaten moldy rye bread and experienced the side-effects of ergot poisoning. Nevertheless after a mind-numbing trip through the suburban labyrinth, no minotaurs devoured me, no harpies harangued me, and I reached the game, held at a tidy bungalow, in one piece.

The game was a raucous one where ball-breaking and verbal sparring took centre stage, and were not only acceptable but part of the fun and very much part of the tactics. If you could throw someone off their game by questioning their masculinity or slurring their mother, power to you. On the other hand, wariness was recommended when entering such verbal donnybrooks. You could walk away from them scalded and even psychologically wounded if your smack game was weak. Even sitting there silently could get the dogs on you for sitting there silently: “Look at the mute, throw him a quarter.” “Man’s got no tongue, his girl must hate his guts.” “Hey, anyone every tell you you look like one of those wooden cigar store sculptures ...” And so on.

So this guy called Francis, who’d been getting slurred relentlessly all evening, and taking it with good humour – someone called him a catamite, which went unheard by the other players, but which bit him – made a standard pre-flop raise from under the gun, and action moved to this big guy called Primo, wearing a brick-coloured suit, in the big blind. "Are you picking on me again?" Primo asked twiddling his fingers, delicate for a big man. He winked at Francis and made kissy faces. Francis, reddening, answered, “You know what? I like you, and because I like you, I´ll show you how much I´m picking on you.” Primo thought about it for a second and said, "You like me? Hey guys, he likes me? Does that mean you want to marry me? Or make love to me? Does that mean you want to be “buddies” with me, if you know what I’m saying?”

The others laughed. But what I saw was two guys giving speeches. And they were far from done giving speeches. Which led me to believe that they both had monsters.

Undeterred, Francis said, “I like you so much, Primo, I find you so attractive, so manly and robust and magnetic and strong, that I think I’ll raise here with my little bitty old hand just to get your blood going a little, just to get you a little warm under the collar, a little frothy, if you know what I’m saying, and I don’t mind losing to you, I don’t mind losing to you at all, because of my feelings for you.” Primo laughed broadly and deeply in his chest, as the others watched nervously, for clearly something out of the ordinary was taking place here, something that would not be mitigated by mere verbiage.

“When I was a kid,” Primo said, I wanted to wear little dresses. That’s right. There were these little pink and yellow and white dresses that my older sister used to wear when she was a girl. Don’t be shocked fellas, it’s true, and I was only four or five years old, very innocent, you know – what did I know from dresses? But an uncle of mine gave me such a slap to the face when he found out that I never even thought of it again until right this minute, with your admiring eyes following my every move, my every word, my every breath. I’m going to re-raise you here because I believe that luck is with me, if not for my past sufferings then for my present ones.”

“And since you have revealed a truth about yourself,” Francis said, “I will reveal one about myself, and will admit to you and to everyone at this table that not only did I also wear little dresses when I was a child but I have continued to cross-dress during the entirety of my adulthood, my marriage to two different women and my fathering of four children, and you know what, I’ve managed. It’s been hard but I’ve managed. And because I beg to differ about whom the poker gods will bless tonight – I think they side with me right now, for my truthfulness and gentle nature – I’m moving all-in.”

Primo snap-called, giggling and jumping around with his hands between his legs as though he had to pee. The hands were shown. Primo had the A of hearts and the A of spades. Francis had A of clubs and A of diamonds. Everyone found this amusing except the two combatants who clearly wanted to take a piece out of each other. When the board came K-3-8-clubs Primo looked at it with disbelief. When the river brought another club and the hand was over he continued to stare at the table in disbelief.

“Want to tell us any other stories?” Francis asked him as he cheerfully gathered his chips. A shaken Primo said nothing, then left the table and the game with a bad-beat story to tell and a very bad taste in his mouth.

Emile Frendo of the Honeymoon City is a semi-professional poker player and winner of the 2006 Pirate Poker Open Championship.