Friday, February 18, 2005

Poker Night at Birge's

It's been a while since I've played poker with people in person, you know, as opposed to the online gigs. Last night, the players included: Birge, Eric, Hobe (sp?), Chris, hubby Brian, and myself. The buy-in is rather reasonable, so if you lose everything, coming back into the game isn't difficult, as long as you remember to save some money for the cab ride home.

Some of the plays were outrageous, and Brian was usually involved in them. For one of them, Brian had pocket 8's and had three of a kind on the flop. Eric had a straight on the flop and went all in. Brian called. Well, it didn't look too good for Brian, but whaddaya know, the 8 showed up on the turn. It was a riot. One of the luckiest draws ever and everyone was flipping out...especially Eric. He ended up buying in three times.

Usually everyone plays really tight, resulting in a level of tension in the air. Gosh, the first time I played, I was so nerve-racked, I could barely stop shaking whenever I moved my chips or dealt. But as according to Brian, we were playing Hobe's School of Poker, where Hobe consistently egged people to stay in, and Eric followed suit by consistently cracking jokes. I must say it was a rather fun night. It was hilarious watching the others try to have a poker face or lack of one, playing with chips like how you see on the WPT, and just trying to stare each other down.

I didn't have too many memorable moments since I was handed a string of really bad hands, like 8-4 unsuited, 2-7 unsuited or a jack with a really low kicker. But oh, when you're waiting for one of two cards on the river, and it turns up...such a good feeling. I was head to head with Brian with an outside straight on the flop, praying for a king or an eight to show on the turn or the river, and yes!, a king showed up on the river. Brian called each of my raises so that made it sweeter. He ended up having just a pair.

Brian wound up having the biggest chip count, almost accounting for two of Eric's buy-ins, and I did manage to finish with 20% more than I started, so it was cool in the gang.

Oh, and by the way, the buy-in was five dollars.

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