They're as different as chalk and cheese and that's the way it should be for Teflon John Key and Angry Andy Little.

In the Prime Minister's case you've got a wheeler dealer, someone who plays a high roller game, usually with an end in sight but with the risk that it could end badly. In his case though, he's got so much political capital, with a personal rating of more than 60 percent, that he can afford to roll the dice without too much worry.

With Angry Andy you've got the legal, calculated, former trade union negotiator, someone who's only prepared to lay his cards on the table when he knows he's got a Royal flush.

Both men have been playing a game of bluff over the past 24 hours and one of them will eventually fold his hand.

The argument's pretty straight forward. Little reckons we should vote on whether we want the current flag changed in the first referendum, along with five designs, including the increasingly popular Red Peak.

Key's willing to include the Peak but only if Little drops his insistence on the yes/no vote up front and go along with the referenda process.

Little writes to Key asking for a meeting but outlines his early ballot preference. However he concludes the letter by saying he'd be happy to meet with the PM in good faith and without preconditions.

Trouble is he included the conditions in the letter and Key wrote back saying a meeting would be pointless while they're there.

Little writes back to his now pen pal, removing all reference to the yes/no vote and saying let's talk. And that's where he's being calculated, dealing the cards and praying for the flush.

But Teflon John will see it as a bluff, he'll know the vote cards will be laid on the table once he's agreed to the meeting. But if Little plays it right and goes along with the referenda proposal as it stands, he'll make it hard for Key to refuse to meet.

The end game for Angry Andy is to have the Red Peak on the ballot and if the roulette wheel finally stops on red, beating the current stars and Union Jack stripes, the game's over. Key's lost, his beloved silver fern will be relegated to the forest floor.