poker

Last night I was at my coworker's annual birthday party where a poker game usually breaks out. This time the demand was so great that it actually turned into 2 tables.

They mostly play games that have half the deck being wild so it is difficult to have any chance of winning a game since your full house could get beat just as easily by 6-of-a-kind as anything else. It is really quite silly.

Skill Games: Texas Hold 'Em, 5-card Draw, Anaconda Hi/Lo
Sort-of Skill Games: Follow the Queen [Queens are not wild variant], "Change 'Em" which appears to be normally called Dirty Schultz, Black Mariah [Queens are not wild variant], Texas (no, not Hold 'em)
Next-to-No-Skill Games: Poop on Your Neighbor [Ace = double pay & Yoink! variants]

It was random change for betting...so I brought a giant bag of nickels, dimes and quarters totalling $17.40...and only came back with $14.35. Oh well, I gave it a shot.

Well, it appears that I only record my poker nights when I win ...cuz somewhere between the poker I played last night...and the first entry I put on here I played again with my mindframe buddies and got my ass handed to me.

That time, unlike the first time, we had dice games...and I hate dice...the games are just pure luck all you can do is sit and watch your money evaporate during them. In the cards I think I was about as successful as last time in what I call the "skill games"...but this time the other games didn't break my way and the money just kept draining away.

Skill Games: Texas Hold 'Em, Omaha, 5-card draw, 7-card Stud
Sort-of Skill Games: Follow the Queen [Queens are not wild variant]
Next-to-No-Skill Games: Guts [50% 2-card/50% 3-card, always Beat the Deck & Drop, and 50% of the time Limit], Poop on Your Neighbor [Ace = double pay & Yoink! variants], Threes Are Free (dice) [non-"Shoot the Moon", one-tie-all-tie variant], Horses (dice)

I went in with $20 and I lost it all.

...but I did eat all the host's Cheetos just to get even with the bastard. Can I count that $2.99 worth of cheese towards my winnings?

My current co-workers had a ValleyFair night - ValleyFair was offering "2 for $25 Twilight Admissions" - so I went to that from 5PM to 8PM. One of the co-worker's oldest kids, Darius, is old enough to ride all the "big" rides. So he and Arah and I did the circuit as fast as possible. We did: Power Shot" Power Tower, Wild Thing, High Roller, Corkscrew (the lines on Corkscrew were terrible - I hate that ride), Steel Venom, Wild Thing, Wild Thing.

Then it was over to the ex-co-workers' poker party. Lots of Two-card Guts, Poop on Your Neighbor and Texas Hold'em. A little bit of Three-card Guts, Sink the Ship, 5-card Draw and Omaha. I played well and had some good hands/luck to go with that. Started with $20 finished with $42.75....more than doubled up on them. Nice!

(I think I am going to track income from these ventures and see if one can actually stay positive doing this or if I just win one week and then give it all back the next. So in the title of any of these entries you will see a format of "+## [Grand Total: +##]" in which the first numbers are the +/- for the night and the second numbers are the +/- for my entire poker life starting now.)

I think I will try to "squeeze all the joy out of this" too...as bro#4 is likely to say.