I also do not understand the title either. An inside straight generally means a long shot, or a bad bet. A general rule in Draw Poker is: Do not draw on an inside straight. This is because there is only a 9% chance of completing it. For instance if you are dealt the 2, 3, 10, 5, 6 of mixed suits and discard the 10 hoping to draw a 4 you only have a 9% chance of completing your hand. With an open end straight such as 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 you could discard the 10 as there us a 17% chance of completing your hand drawing either an Ace or 6 to complete.
So the title might mean the Tea Party Nation has little chance of achieving something. But what it is I do not know. The title does not make sense to me.
“I also do not understand the title either. An inside straight generally means a long shot, or a bad bet. A general rule in Draw Poker is: Do not draw on an inside straight.
[snip]
So the title might mean the Tea Party Nation has little chance of achieving something. But what it is I do not know. The title does not make sense to me.”
Although the title probably could have been better, I believe what it’s trying to convey is that the Tea Party unexpectedly had some unlikely good fortune - in other words it successfully drew the inside straight (”has”) against the odds.
A poor way of stating that 0 is looking like a complete fool given the unfolding events in Egypt. In general anything bad that happens to 0 is a good thing. I hope he fails, and he seems to be doing well at it. ;-)
0 as President has been an expert at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Thanks for the explanation of an inside straight, which I’ve heard repeatedly, but never actually understood until your explanation (I obviously spend too much time on FR and too little time playing poker).
The actual title of the post was: “Tea Party Nation has the inside straight on Egypt” It then says “Kathleen Gose at Tea Party Nation writes:” and proceeds to provide all this “insider” information about what’s going on.
I’m wondering whether the blogger didn’t simply mean that TPN (meaning Kathleen Gose at TPN) has the “inside dope” or “inside information” on what’s really going on. I don’t see how the blogger could have really intended to say “inside straight” unless she didn’t know the meaning of the term, i.e., that it meant the opposite of what she thought it did.