Ante up

My friend Joe plays poker. One of many activities this man, who has a life, enjoys. Some time ago I suggested he invite people over to his place for a poker night. He did give it a go, but only three people were available, which wasn’t enough. I did suggest he try again, but he never has. So a few weeks ago, I took steps.

I invited Joe and a couple of other mates over for dinner. I didn’t say anything about poker, but the day before the dinner I did go to the bank and get four roles of nickels. After dinner I revealed the real object of the exercise. Everyone was game.

The version of poker Joe plays is Texas Hold ’Em. He started explaining the rules that night, but the rest of us decided it was just too complicated, so we ended up playing five card draw, which everyone knew. It was a fun evening.

The next time he and I went for a walk with Georgie, obviously remembering me telling him a while ago that I really was going to have to try getting a life, now that I was stepping down from the board of the local theatre group (he is also a member of the board and also stepping down), he asked me if I might like to give poker at the pub a try. I said sure. He sent me some links to Texas Hold ’Em tutorials on YouTube, which did give me some idea. (For example, if your two dealt cards are a two and a seven, just fold.)

A couple of Tuesdays ago I went with him. There are two pubs on the island – the really, really nice one and the not so nice one. I seldom go to the latter, but that’s where the poker is played. They even have their own, large poker table, which is set up on the night. It’s tournament poker, which means everyone starts out with the same number of chips and players get knocked out as the evening progresses. (The chips are provided as part of the set up and no actual money is involved.) The red ones are $25, the greens are $100, the blacks $500 and the whites $1000. Or maybe that’s cents, not dollars.

I come from a card playing family*, so it’s not really surprising that I enjoyed the evening. What surprised me (and, I suspect, Joe) is that I lasted longer than he did. Oh, and I met ten new people – people who, unlike most of the folks I know on the island, have nothing to do with theatre. Told Joe when he was driving me home that I would definitely go again.

He’s in Winnipeg at the moment, visiting his mum. Last week I completely forgot about Tuesday poker until about 8:30, when it was far too late to go.

I did make it back this week. Not only did I meet three more new people, but I made it into the final four. After an early big win on a last card straight, I said to the woman beside me that I wished I’d remembered to bring my phone so I could take a picture of my pile of chips to send to Joe. She obligingly took a photo on her phone and sent it to him.

For a while towards the end of the evening, when I was knackered and kinda wanted to go home, I couldn’t lose for winning. Twice I went all in with my remaining chips, just so I would get knocked out, only to win the pot with a pair of low cards. Eventually going all in worked.

The poker players are, as Joe told me, a really nice group of people. So, check me out – getting involved in a new interest that has nothing to do with theatre.

And no surprise that this song (or at least its chorus) has been playing in my head.

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* One afternoon, in the run up to Christmas, at my cousin’s house in Cheshire, his youngest asked me if I fancied a game of cards. We went into the diningroom and started playing knock out whist, which is a good, simple two person game. Then my uncle walked past the diningroom, saw we were playing cards and joined in. We changed the game. A couple of other people joined in. The game changed again. When my cousin got home from work, he was delighted to see we were playing cards and immediately joined us. A hand was dealt. I looked at my cards, realised I had no idea if they were good or bad and had to ask, “What game are we playing?’