Persian Poker All the Rage in Iran

A Chops here/:: snake joint.

The Financial Times (among other news sources) has recently reported on a new crazy game that's all the rage in Iran: Persian Poker (also known as "Nuclear Poker").
 
Yep, it seems that Iranians are fanatical for this new game.  Fundamentally, from what we can tell, here's how it's played: 1) each guy gets dealt some enriched plutonium/uranium, 2) you aggressively stack chips by building secret facilities to create nuclear reactors/fission, 3) you play a cat-and-mouse game with the international community, constantly running bluffs and coming over the top of "cease" demands by telling ridiculous lies with your perfect poker face, 4) you have a "Matusow blow-up" by testing a weapon underground, 5) you put your opponents on perpetual tilt as they anticipate the next blow-up.
 
Much like Texas Hold'em in the States, Persian Poker is ALL the rage in Iran.  But instead of young, educated men with sunglasses and dreams of financial independence, it's young, uneducated, stinky men with small penises and ratty beards with dreams of killing anyone who believes in democratic independence.  Iranian men are absolutely crazy for it, and they're leaving their women at home for days to play.
 
Which is a shame, because the Middle East has the most underrated looking woman in the world.  Probably underrated because we never get to see what they look like.  But seriously, if you had a woman like the one above, why would you ever leave the house to go play this crazy new Persian Poker game?
 
Anyway...

In Persian Poker, your hand strength is based on the following: 1) Does your only real threat at the table have the resources to call your bluff by, say, invading your country?  Or is its resources bogged down elsewhere?  2) Have radical fundamentalists sympathetic to your, um, hand, emerged triumphant from their recent electoral MTT?  3) Do you feel you can sit back with a short stack while the two big stacks play against each other, while you verbally goad them along the way, causing a distractive division so they fight just long enough for you to build your chip arsenal?  4) Would your radical fundamentalism (and people dedicated to your cause) best be described as, "the nuts."  5) Do railbirds have sympathy for you because if you cash, they'll feed off your riches? 

If you answer yes to all of these questions, then you're on your way to winning Persian Poker!
 
And here's the kicker, while this game is hotter in Iran than persian women, they're mostly playing it against an International community.
 
So it's just like PokerStars!
 
So the next question is, how good of a player is Iran in Persian Poker?  WCP co-founder Snake, who dabbles in Middle East/Persian/southwest Asian politics when he's not eating Kaleh Joosh at his favorite Persian diner, has some thoughts, saying, "My take is that these nuclear poker playing Iranians are very much like skinny little online poker weasels with big mouths, little balls, and who secretly like it in the butt.  They're sitting there short-stacked with a crap hand and are running their mouths and tossing poorly timed bluffs like a street vender slinging kebabs at dawn in Tehran, all the while while the U.S. is sitting at the other end of the table with the big stack yet lacking the will perhaps to bully the table after getting involved in a troubled hand with the Iraqi at the table, whose sitting next to an Israeli pissed off and ready to drop the f-bomb as well as a pair of rockets on anyone nearby crazy enough to be the aggressor against him. Meanwhile an Afghani, whose been donning Levis ever since 2001, is building a stack and getting bold but is losing focus because of the kamikaze Iraqi who drove up in a Cadillac with an empty tank and he's been riding a chip stack rollercoaster, yelling 'Allah Akbar!' every time he goes all in and is ready to put the squeeze on any meddling Iranian fuck."
 
So while they might've invented Persian Poker, it doesn't sound like the Iranians have mastered it yet.  Cause really, the U.S. still controls the deck.

Comments

[Sam]

Do some research before wasting your time.

[David H]

the most stupid thing ive ever heard, i played with so many great persian poker players and they are all pro like esfandiari "the magician" and alayi. and ofcourse iranian youngesters are so smart. that photo is not from a persian woman, thats from an arab woman. you should be ashamed of yourself for sayin these stupid things

[cgpop]

Levis since 2001? Tragic.