又中又英 | Poker face | 褚簡寧
Poker is my favourite card game, but I am a lousy player. Good poker players must have a poker face. A poker face means an expression on a person’s face that does not reveal what that person is thinking or feeling. I didn’t know how to put on a poker face when I played poker with my school friends during my younger years. They could easily guess if my cards were good or bad! We couldn’t afford to play high-stakes poker because we were just schoolkids. A high-stakes poker game means gambling with a lot of money.
I don’t know if US President Donald Trump likes to play cards, but he often uses card-related expressions. When he scolded Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last year, he said Zelensky didn’t have the cards to fight Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If you don’t have the cards, it means you are in a weak position. Trump last week posted an AI picture of himself holding six Uno playing cards with a caption that said he has all the cards in the US war against Iran. If you have all the cards, it means you are in a powerful position.
But social media users ridiculed the picture. They quickly pointed out that the aim of Uno is for players to have zero cards to win! Players start with seven cards and need to lose them to win. Trump held up six in the picture, which meant he had a losing hand. An Iranian diplomat ridiculed Trump by posting an AI image of an Iranian military official holding only four Uno cards with a caption that said: “Yes, we have less cards”.
＊＊＊＊＊＊
撲克是我最喜歡的牌類遊戲，可惜我是個糟糕的玩家。優秀的撲克牌玩家必須有 poker face。A poker face就是木無表情、深藏不露的撲克臉，別人無法猜透其心思。我年輕的時候跟我的同學玩撲克牌時，就不懂得怎樣去掛上撲克臉（poker face），他們總能輕易猜到我拿的是好牌還是爛牌！我們玩不起高籌碼撲克（high-stakes poker），因為我們還只是在學的小子。A high-stakes poker game是指賭注很大的撲克牌局。
我不知道美國總統特朗普是否喜歡玩啤牌，但他不時用上關於卡牌的習語。當他去年在白宮橢圓形辦公室責罵烏克蘭總統澤連斯基時，他就說澤連斯基didn’t have the cards 去抵抗俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭。若你 don’t have the cards，意即你手上沒牌了，正處於下風。特朗普上星期張貼了他自己手握6張Uno紙牌的人工智能（AI）圖片，附加說明文字道，在美國對伊朗的戰爭中他 has all the cards。若你 have all the cards，意即你處於上風、有優勢或主導權。
然而，社交媒體的網民都嘲諷這張圖片。他們立即指出，Uno的目標是玩家沒有牌才算贏！開局時，每名玩家都有7張牌，需要打出手上所有紙牌才能勝出。特朗普在圖中手持6張牌，意味着他處於劣勢，可能會輸。一名伊朗外交官嘲笑特朗普，同樣貼出一張AI圖片，圖中有一名伊朗軍官手握僅4張Uno紙牌，再配上文字說：「沒錯，我們手裏的牌更少。」
[email protected]
Michael Chugani褚簡寧
中譯：七刻
