[Certain]

YDK: This is the best verse I've read from you. I picked up on the cards extended metaphor pretty early on, but that only made the verse more readable because I wasn't trying to put together some elaborate puzzle. Most of your individual metaphors made sense in context, which can be tough to do when you're playing the hide-the-narrator game. The structure is a bit dated because it doesn't hold up well against full stories, as Mike Wrecka is finding out this week. That doesn't mean it's bad, though. You brought some witty lines that I really liked, particularly the card-game wordplay. And your writing was crisp and smooth, which is important in these verses because if they fall too far into abstractions, the twist ceases to matter or can even be a letdown. I'd have liked a bit more of the witticisms and a more complex rhyme scheme., but you executed this verse well.

Frank: Your very style is all over the place. You jump from thought to thought, but it's very realistic as far as inhabiting the narrator's stream of conscious. The two or three other verses I've seen from you probably displayed this style better, though. Here the story became a bit fractured. With that said, this verse was very good. Reading your words makes it obvious how much fun you have constructing them. I had to read this verse a second time before I fully grasped everything that was going on, but I always read verses twice before voting. You seem to draw your storytelling style from Nas, which makes you very different from the average writer. And it makes your verses compelling for the same reasons Nas is a compelling storyteller. Even if some details get lost, the lyricism is great and the characters come to life. That's what you had over YDK this week, a more fleshed out world and characters.

Vote: Frank