I’ve played poker approximately 3 times in my life, the last time probably back in my undergraduate days. So I was more than a bit hesitant about accepting the invitation for a night of poker when it was extended. After the week I’ve had at work, cumulating in a day-long meeting on Friday, it turned out to be exactly what I needed. And more importantly, it turned out to be a whole lot of fun. I started out with my little cheat sheet of hands (showing which one is higher than the others), and I still don’t have them all completely memorized, but at least now I know a good handful of variations, and what it means if a card is wild or dead, and that I am damn good at bluffing, and that Guts is aptly named.

The man who hosted the poker party set up a number of rules guaranteed to make it fun. We all had to pick wild west names and then call each other by those names (or pay a penalty). We all came with $20 and house rules were that you could still play even if you lost everything, so it was set up to be a friendly game, not a game of how much money could you lose. We switched tables a few times during the night to keep things mixed up. There was plenty of food and drink. The one dim spot was the cigars, but since we were all out in the garage, with doors open and fans blowing, the smoke didn’t get too bad.

Amazingly enough I walked out of there ahead. Wow. The one who always always always no questions asked never any doubt loses at gambling. I fully expected to walk in with $20 and walk out with just some loose change. Okay, so I didn’t rake in the dough, but walking out ahead, even if it was only a buck or two was an unexpected surprise. Richard was down a few bucks, but even so, between the two of us we didn’t even lose enough for a dinner at McDonalds. Not bad for five hours of entertainment, I figure, even if we did leave reeking of cigar smoke, bleary-eyed from the late hour. It was worth it.