Dealer's choice

The weekend at Change 100's living room* (Bong Rec Area) was a good time. A good amount of beer was consumed around the campfire in between sporadic rainfall. The chilly weather did take a toll on Saturday night though making it quite miserable.

On Friday night, the cards were pulled out for some dealer's choice. With more people, a little hold 'em tournament might be organized but with just 5 of us, tossing chips around with whatever game the dealer chose was a better idea. Stakes are only a nickel so one can easily donk around and have some fun.

That is how I usually approach these games. I am going to have some fun, lose a buy in and then go back to the fire and focus on drinking and shooting the shit. The games don't change much when it is dealers choice. You have all probably played them in one form or another but with different names. There is Dimestore (5s and 10s wild), Baseball (3s and 9s wild, buy a card with a 4), Black Mariah (low spade in the hole gets half the pot, if the Q of spades comes out, re-ante and deal again), 5 card draw, deuces wild, Stud, and Guts. It always seems one game stays a bit more popular after a big pot ($6!) and gets played again and again as the players chase to win it all back.

Basic poker skills go out the window in these games. People will chase cards to the end (it is only a nickel or dime to call, pots odds are in your favor) or will play crap from the beginning hoping to catch wild cards. I may be the only one that will fold bad hands at the beginning knowing I need to catch well just to make a winnable hand.

It is the games with wild cards that drive me nuts. Full houses and straight flushes go down in flames to 5 of a kind hands. That always irks me. There is no 5 of a kind. Some will always say there is with wild cards but that is bull.

I feel like I have an advantage in these games, especially in the Stud games. I don't think anyone is counting cards, noticing how many of their suit is out there. I caught two flushes just be counting. Then again I screwed up thinking I caught a straight when I had not. If it wasn't for two nice Black Mariah hands, I would have been out of the game and at the fire early instead of banking a $2.75 win!

Vegas, here I come!

*No, I did not literally spend a weekend in Change's living room. I used her comment from the previous post as I thought it was hilarious. Speaking of which, her latest post on poker movies is excellent. This paragraph says it all:

Poker movies (and scripted TV shows) have failed because every single one
post-Rounders has been poorly written. Plain and simple. They haven't failed to
ignite because the general public doesn't "get" poker or because the writers and
directors involved don't understand poker or because the subject matter isn't
commercial enough. They've failed because their stories and characters weren't
original or compelling. They suffered from one-dimensional characters, cliched
conflicts and cheesy dialogue.