Our compatriots over at Gothamist had an interesting post earlier today titled "High School Kids Are The New Card Sharks" -- well, I can tell you that they're not just playing in school. This half of Ortgeist played in his first no limit hold 'em tourney at one of New York's mysterious poker dens over the weekend and the kid sharks were there en masse.

First thing I noticed was the number of young Russian players. Honestly, a half dozen of or so couldn't have been more than 20 at the most... if that. Second thing I noticed, and this is once the chips were down and the cards were dealt, was how remarkably good they were. There was a particularly tricky trio clustered together on one end of my table and each and every one of them was absolutely inscrutable.

Clearly there's an elective at Stuyvesant teaching all of these kids how to keep a poker face. Maybe Gabe Kaplan is teaching in the public schools again....

Incidentally, if anyone's curious, I managed to avenge a friend that had been busted out by one of the Kid Sharks by busting them out a few hands later. After that I was shifted to another table where I was betrayed by pocket sevens. Lucky sevens my ass.