Q:

A story that's been passed around in my family for years describes you as a notorious cheat and terrible poker player.  Can you confirm or deny the rumor that you lost your 'bluff' on a hand played with my mother?

--Kazak;  Fontainbleu, Switzerland

A:

I have no wish to impugn your mother by discussing what we both agreed was a very private and compromising game of poker, but as she has broached the subject with a critical inaccuracy I will gladly disabuse you of her version of events.  

At the tense and closely played denoument of the game, when she had been whittled down to only her bra and one earring, she bet the former on what she took to be a queen-high straight.  I play only with a loaded deck, of course, so I knew she was mistaken.  With three deuces I was sitting in the catbird seat, and I went all in.  In order to get the earring on the table as well, I offered to remove my skin if she held the winning hand.  She did not, of course, and the rest of the evening is history of which you may conceivably be the disappointing product.  

The fact that I removed my skin anyway during the proceedings that followed does not, in my opinion, constitute a blemish on my poker pedigree.