From 1 April 2010

Cutting the deck in order to purposefully deal the Joker means we may win the current hand but not a subsequent one.

Once we play the Joker this way,  we cede all power.  It’s not safe unless it remains in *our* hand or we choose it with which to *end* the game.  We mistakenly play the Joker because we only bother to calculate the shortest term risk we can live with.  We also believe if the Joker isn’t used against us immediately, it won’t be used later.  We won the hand AND manipulated the game in our favor. Or so we think…

Nothing is “fair” in Love and War.  Or cards…..

So what happens when the Joker is used against us at a later date?

The Joker takes the ante to the highest limit possible and either plays the card that exposes us for what we are, or folds to permanently to end the game with a sacrificial  price of *their* choosing.  But rarely, if ever, is the *price* within tolerable limits for *us*.

We become “The Fool” we purposefully dealt the other….

It’s a miscalculation of the worse kind.

Beaten at our own game,

we are left no chips

with which to “play”.

Or worse yet,

we are left with

ones of no value

and alone.

Either way, we loose….