Poker Night

When I was little, probably only five or so, my Dad used to have a group of friends he played poker with fairly regularly.  I remember that I wasn’t much taller than the table, but I could see up there and see the red, white and blue chips, the drinks and food.  I even recall the blanket that they would throw over the table to use as a cover.  As a kid, I wanted to play poker with them so badly.  I never got to play in that game but, eventually, my friends and I made our own.

My Dad is a good card player.  He usually does really well in part by being a very good reader of people – a skill that he and my brother share in spades and seems to have largely skipped me.  But, also, he’s got a very good memory for the cards played.  Playing Gin Rummy with him is a losing proposition as he seems to know what he has, what he needs and, very quickly, what you have as well.

My own poker experience started not long after my son was born, so probably 22 years ago or so.  Several guys at work (including my long time friend, Ken) decided to have a poker night and my place was, I think, one of the first places we played.

At the time we lived in a small rental.  I don’t remember how we had enough chairs, I’m guessing we had to borrow some.  Stakes were very low to start out with.  Folks literally showed up with a jar or baggie of change.  That night we played with that change, no chips.  I think we quickly decided pennies were verboten but there were certainly nickels, dimes and quarters.  A quarter was the max bet back then (we were all young and careful with our money).  With a bet of a quarter and three raises, it was possible that a bet could climb to a dollar before it got around to you.  Since then, our bets have risen a bit.  Buy-ins are usually around $40, but you’re welcome to buy in for less if you’d like.  Bets are typically a max of a buck.

When we first started, a good night might have someone up $10 and a bad loss would be to lose that same $10.  Now, a good win might be (and was last night) $80 to the good and the biggest loss was, I think, $40.

When we had a fairly stable group for a number of years, we’d have themes to each poker night.  We had Science Night at my house.  You had to show up with a science experiment which you’d demonstrate to the others during a break time.  There was Cheese Night where we sampled various familiar and unfamiliar cheeses.  There was one that night that smelled like a baby’s diaper but tasted pretty good!  There was a Norwegian cheese brought by Jan-Erik, our Norwegian friend.  It was kind of waxy, caramel brown and had an odd taste.  I don’t know the spelling, but we made him teach us to say the name and it was something like “YAY-toast”.  One night we made up poker games.  My favorite, or at least the one whose name has stuck with me over the years is “Searching for Elvis (High and Low).”  The game had something to do with trying to figure out if someone had (of course) a King and involved staring in to their eyes to see if they were lying or not.

Over time, folks would come and go.  Most have gone over the years as we moved apart or they lost interest or had kids or it just became too far to travel to the various homes.  But a few of us have stuck together.  I’ve known Ken since we were 13 or 14.  I played my first (formal) poker game with him and played with him again this last Saturday.  I’m very thankful for that friendship and that continuity in my life.  He and I have always been a bit competitive with each other, so it’s always fun to try and get his money, but I suspect he’s gotten slightly more money from me than I from him over the years.

Come to think of it, I actually played something we called “Lightweight Poker” with him and several other guys and girls in our college dorm.  It involved very cheap wine as the betting mechanism.  These games were very silly and were the first time I got drunk with friends.  No one was driving anywhere as we lived in the dorms so after the games drew to a close we typically would sit in the hallways drinking LOTS of water to hydrate to try and avoid the hangover in the morning.

Our group tends to play about half straight games (five/seven card stud, draw poker, Texas Hold’em, Omaha) and half what we call the crazy games.  Lots of wild cards with weird rules and, often, wild betting and wild swings in money.  We also play a wide variety of games and are always open to a new one.  Being able to remember the difference between Do-Ya? and King’s With a Buy helps keep the games moving.

I recall a game of Acey-Ducey (which we call Red Dog, others call Between the Sheets) that involved getting two cards and having the opportunity to bet whether the next card would fall between those two cards.  In this game, the first card was an Ace and was declared (as was the option of the player) as low.  The second card came up and was another Ace and was automatically high.  This is the best situation possible in this game.  At the time there was exactly $13.50 in the pot.  The no-brainer bet was to bet the entire pot because with two Aces up, nearly every card was between those two Aces *except* for the unseen other two Aces.  So, two cards in 48 were bad.  Great odds.  In this game, though (or at least our variation), if you matched the end cards, you had to double the bet.  The player thought for a few minutes and decided to go for it.  In a moment that will never be forgotten in our poker group, a third Ace came up and there was an absolute uproar of people yelling $13.50!!  At the time that was a lot of money since our typical buy-in was probably $20.  The player had to dip in to their wallet to buy more chips to match the pot.  It was a crazy game.

Ken has done a good job keeping stats for our games going back much of that 20 years.  In fact, at one point Ken did some analysis (we’re engineers, we analyze data) and it turned out that the while there were a few people who did somewhat better than others, the average loss over many, many years for the person who lost the most was about $5.  Yes, for a night of six hours of entertainment, usually with snacks and drink costs shared, the “big loser” averaged a loss of $5 across all the games for which we had data.  I, as one of the folks who won more than I lost, had an average win at the time for the data we had of something like $10/night.  So, the losses less than the cost of a matinee, wins get you a double feature.  That’s a pretty cheap night of entertainment by any measure.

Eventually, as with all things, the games changed.  Theme Nights went by the wayside.  Folks stopped playing and our games became much less frequent.  Our last game, or at least the last game I played with Ken, was probably four or five months ago.

I’m very fortunate that my wife, Christina, likes to play Poker and enjoys that activity with me because I really enjoy sharing Poker Night with her.  She’s a fun player and I enjoy hanging out with her.  We don’t do everything together and do enjoy our activities separately sometimes, but I’m very thankful that Poker is one we can do together and enjoy together.  Winner her money can be just a bit sweeter!

Poker, along with the friendships that have come about because of it, has been an important part of my adult life.

Frankly, I don’t care if I win or lose that much since I never gambled more than I could afford.  Having said that, I do recall taking a walk from the table one time after a big loss.  The term “Sleeping With the Cats” was coined another evening when I went back in to a spare room and took a nap because I’d lost my stake and wasn’t willing to put in more money and didn’t have my own car that night.  So, maybe I do prefer to win than lose.  But, generally, what I’m really there for is the visiting and the fun of the games.  If I’m up, I tend to play more loosely and will chase after pots, just for fun.

There is a book called “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” about how in the middle of the last century, people joined bowling leagues to socialize, or the fraternal organizations like the Elks or the Eagles or the Masons.  Those organizations don’t really have the kind of pull or influence they once did.  I want to believe that my generation replaced them with things like our Poker Night.  Our own (informal) organization with our own rules and traditions which would sound silly outside our group but are important to us.  And Poker Night has been important to me.  It was a constant for me though raising my kids and through a divorce and is a part of my relationship with my wife.  What my Poker group thought of Christina when I introduced her to them was important to me because they were important to me.  (Truth be told, I would have ditched them over her, but don’t tell them.  Or her.)  The good news was she liked my Poker group and my Poker group was happy to have her join.

I was invited to Poker Night at my friend Ken’s place last Saturday.  There were eight folks there.  Two of them I’ve played poker with for more than 15 years.  I’ve been playing poker with Ken for more than 20 years.  I thanked Ken and David for hosting and I meant it.  They were great hosts.  I had a good time.  I won a bit of money ($23)  More than any of that, though, I’m thankful for having a friends that I’ve stayed in touch with and stayed close with for most of my life.  Poker, for me, has been a welcome thread through those years that brings me together with those friends and for that I’m very thankful.

I had lunch with my son this week and it turns out he joined a role-playing group for the first time, in part because I infected him with some of my enthusiasm for my own role-playing experiences.  He had a good time and thinks he’ll keep playing with them for a while.  In high school, my daughter had a group of friends that were very tight.  They had traditions that were unique to them including Waffle Wednesday.  They looked out for each other and are still close through college.

I’m very thankful for my own group.  I’m equally thankful for the groups that my kids have found and are a part of.  The social groups that supported my parents and their parents may be passing away, but I’m happy to see that we’re still forming our own groups and those groups support us through the years and the groups that my kids are forming will be there to support them in the same way as long as they need them and as long as they add value to their lives.