Even when on a losing streak, poker enriches your vocabulary

SHAGGY DOGS: TO CALL a person’s bluff is to test their claims and issue a challenge for them to reveal the truth.

Poker, from which the phrase derives, is essentially a game of deception where each player pretends to have the winning hand and the others have to consider the truth of that assertion against the value of the cards in their own hand.

Once play begins, the chips (money tokens) are placed on the table and then the chips are down (things are getting serious). The expression poker-faced, meaning to reveal no outward emotion, comes from this part of the game.

Read More?