Poker Essay -- essays research papers

Poker: Draw Vs. Hold 'em As the room fills with smoke from cigars and cigarettes, I look across the table at the last guy in the hand. I think to myself, â€Å"Why did he just raise me?† I just raised the pot $25 on two pair. The other guy re-raised the pot another $25. My heart is beating like a freight train racing down the tracks, I’m doing everything in my power to stop from sweating and I’m trying to keep my face stone cold straight as to not give myself away. I’m pretty sure at this point that this guy is trying buy the pot, but it still makes me nervous. I decide to call his raise and when the cards are turned over I realize that I had just made the right call. I won the pot and fought off his bluff. Poker is a card game that has been around for hundreds of years. Although the origin of the game and the name itself are debatable, the game of Poker is played more than any other card game in the world. The scenario I explained took place during a game of Five Card Draw. This is a very popular rendition of Poker. Poker has evolved over the years and hence has numerous types of games that still fall under the Poker category. My favorite games are Five Card Draw and Texas Hold ‘em. Both games are similar because they derive from the original game of Poker, involves betting, and using playing cards. They also differ because of the betting, the number of cards used and the way the cards are dealt. Five Card Draw is o...

Diet: Obesity and Dieting Essay

Dieting Makes You Fat The weight-loss industry is swelling as quickly as our waistlines at the moment, which seems something of a paradox. If body-conscious consumers are so happy to buy dieting products, why are we facing an obesity crisis? The truth is, no calorie-controlled diet works; if it did, dieting professionals could kiss repeat business goodbye. Even worse: Restricting what you eat will make you fat. Worse still: Yo-yo dieting can cause depression, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. Frequent dieters are 60 percent more likely to die from heart disease than people who don’t starve themselves. The weight-loss successes trumpeted on the front of slimming magazines contradict this. They tell the stories of women (it usually is women) who have lost a lot of weight by following a diet that restricts calorie intake. As the pictures show, these women have clearly not been made fat by following such regimes. This, though, is only part of the complex dieting jigsaw, as Geoffrey Cannon explains in his book Dieting Makes You Fat. Yes, if you consume less energy than your body burns off in a day, your weight will drop. But Cannon, a public health adviser and nutrition expert, looks longer-term and says that nearly all dieters are forced to turn to drugs, surgery, further dieting or exercise to maintain that initial weight loss. If the title of the book rings a bell, it is possible you read Cannon’s earlier book of the same name, which he wrote 25 years ago. Conclusive new scientific evidence to support the claims in the first book, a global public health crisis caused by obesity and its attendant illnesses, and a booming diet industry prompted Cannon to completely rewrite this text. Dieting Makes You Fat was groundbreaking a quarter of a century ago, but its message is perhaps even more urgent today. As people are getting fatter (a government report from 2007 predicted that by 2050 most British adults will be obese), the market for weight-loss products is growing. The dieting industry in the United States is worth $46 billion a year; in Europe it is worth a‚ ¬93 billion. Clearly, our appetite for losing weight is not matched by our capacity to actually shed fat. Why did we not take Cannon’s advice the first time round? When people are skeptical of dieting regimes, they will say that diets don’t work,† he explains. â€Å"But they always stop short of saying that dieting makes you fat, which is a concept with explosive implications. † He points to scientific studies that illustrate how the dieting trap leads to weight gain. A 2007 UCLA review concluded: â€Å"We found that the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more. †¦ Most of them would have been better off not going on the diet at all. † Further evidence came from an experiment in a closed-off ecosystem in Arizona in the early ’90s. Eight scientists had agreed to live inside the man-made biosphere for two years. Once inside, they discovered they were unable to grow enough food but agreed to diet for the two years and continue with the experiment. They all dropped about 9 kilograms before their weights stabilized. Within six months of leaving the biosphere, they had piled the weight back on, and — crucially — almost of all of it was fat, not the lean tissue they had started out with. Not only does dieting make you fat, it makes you flabby, too. â€Å"Throughout history, humans have evolved and adapted to survive famine and starvation,† explains Cannon. The people who survived were the people who were best able to, those who had their larders inside themselves, in the form of body fat. A dieting regime will fail because you’re training your body to survive famine and starvation better. † Cannon takes pains to dilute the science in Dieting Makes You Fat and includes just one table in the whole book, which looks at the difference between the energy our bodies burn at different weights and with different body compositions — whether lean (physically fit but not necessarily light) or fat (not necessarily heavy, but with a high proportion of body fat to lean tissue). A lean woman who weighs 70 kilograms (154 pounds) burns 600 calories more at rest per day than a woman who weighs the same but has a lot of body fat. What, then, is the answer to losing weight, if diets are out? Cannon, without subscribing to the misconception that a thin person is, by definition, a healthy person and fat people are likewise unhealthy, says there are a lot of people out there who need to lose a lot of weight. He writes from experience, having jumped on the dieting wagon at a young age himself. When he realized that the diets he tried were ineffective, he set about proving why. Dieting Makes You Fat proposes seven golden rules for losing weight, the most salient being to get a lot of exercise and eat plenty of fresh, whole foods. Cannon admits that his approach takes six or seven months before positive results are seen, but he insists that it is what’s needed for people to dig their bodies out of the dieting trap.

How to Read a French Menu

Reading the menu in a  French restaurant  can be a little tricky, and not just because of language difficulties. There may be important differences between restaurants in France and in your own country, including what foods are offered and how they are prepared. Types of menus Le menu and la formule refer to the fixed-price menu, which includes two or more courses (with limited choices for each) and is usually the least expensive way to eat out in France. The choices may be written on the ardoise, which literally means slate. Ardoise can also refer  to the specials board the restaurant might display outside or on a wall at the entrance. The sheet of paper or booklet that the waiter hands you (what English speakers call the menu) is la carte, and anything you order from it is à   la carte, which means fixed-price menu. A couple of other important menus to know are: La carte des vins,  which is the wine menuUne dà ©gustation, which refers to a tasting menu, with small servings of multiple dishes (dà ©guster means to taste) Courses A French meal may include numerous courses, in this order: Un apà ©ritif cocktail, pre-dinner drinkUn amuse-bouche or amuse-gueule snack (just one or two bites)Une entrà ©e appetizer/starter (false cognate alert: entree can mean main course in English)Le plat principal main courseLe fromage cheeseLe dessert dessertLe cafà © coffeeUn digestif after-dinner drink Special Terms In addition to knowing how French restaurants list their food items and prices, as well as the names of courses, you should also familiarize yourself with special food terms. Le plat du jour is the daily special (literally, dish of the day), which is usually part of le menu.Gratuit and offert both mean free.The waiter will often add the word petit (little) to his offer: Un petit dessert? Un petit cafà ©?When youre full, say: Je nen peux plus or Jai bien/trop mangà ©. Other Terms To really feel comfortable ordering from the menu in a French restaurant, youll need to learn a number of common terms. The list below includes almost all common terms you would need to know to impress your friends while ordering in French. The list is broken down by categories, such as food preparation, portions and ingredients, and even regional dishes. Food Preparation   affin aged artisanal homemade, traditionally made la broche cooked on a skewer la vapeur steamed letouffe stewed au four baked biologique, bio organic bouilli boiled brl burnt coup en ds diced coup en tranches / rondelles sliced en crote in a crust en daube in stew, casserole en gele in aspic/gelatin farci stuffed fondu melted frit fried fum smoked glac frozen, icy, glazed grill grilled hach minced, ground (meat) maison homemade pol panfried relev highly seasoned, spicy sch dried truff with truffles truff de ___ dotted/speckled with ___ Tastes   aigre sour amer bitter piquant spicy sal salty, savory sucr sweet(ened) Portions, Ingredients, and Appearance   aiguillettes long, thin slices (of meat) aile wing, white meat aromates seasoning ___ volont (e.g., frites volont) all you can eat la choucroute sauerkraut crudits raw vegetables cuisse thigh, dark meat minc thin slice (of meat) fines herbes sweet herbs un mli-mlo assortment un morceau piece au pistou with basil pesto une pole de ___ assorted fried ___ la pure mashed potatoes une rondelle slice (of fruit, vegetable, sausage) une tranche slice (of bread, cake, meat) une truffe truffle (very expensive and rare fungus) Typical French and Regional Dishes aoli fish/vegetables with garlic mayonnaise aligot mashed potatoes with fresh cheese (Auvergne) le buf bourguignon beef stew (Burgundy) le brandade dish made with cod (Nmes) la bouillabaisse fish stew (Provence) le cassoulet meat and bean casserole (Languedoc) la choucroute (garnie) sauerkraut with meat (Alsace) le clafoutis fruit and thick custard tart le coq au vin chicken in red wine sauce la crme brle custard with a burnt sugar top la crme du Barry cream of cauliflower soup une crpe very thin pancake un croque madame ham and cheese sandwich topped with fried egg un croque monsieur ham and cheese sandwich une daube meat stew le foie gras goose liver ___ frites (moules frites, steak frites) ___ with fries/chips (mussels with fries/chips, steak with fries/chips) une gougre puff pastry filled with cheese la piprade tomato and bell pepper omelet (Basque) la pissaladire onion and anchovy pizza (Provence) la quiche lorraine bacon and cheese quiche la (salade de) chvre (chaud) green salad with goat cheese on toast la salade nioise mixed salad with anchovies, tuna, and hard boiled eggs la socca baked chickpea crpe (Nice) la soupe loignon French onion soup la tarte flambe pizza with very light crust (Alsace) la tarte normande apple and custard pie (Normandy) la tarte tatin upside down apple pie