You call this poker?

Recently I decided to try my “hand” at online poker. Get it? “Hand”, “Poker”? What a riot, eh? Yeah I know, keep my day job. Anyway, I decided to see what all the hubbub was about playing poker on the internet. It has evidently become quite the rage to play something called “Texas Hold’em” in cyberspace. Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m just another old fogy decrying the loss of the good old days, but online poker just plain sucks. Really. Playing online poker is only slightly less boring and annoying than watching poker on TV. The reason I say this is that all the key elements of a really good poker game are lacking in online poker. Poker is a great American institution. I’m not talking about the industrialized version of poker played in Vegas, but the game played at the kitchen table with friends and/or family. Or in the back rooms of clubs, bars, military bases or, in my case, the high school library. No lie.
The poker games I remember, were as a child watching my parents, aunts, uncles and sundry other shady characters with funny names like “Mistersippi” or “Snake” to name a couple play. My family was evidently quite liberated as they didn't care whether you were male or female, they took anyone's money. I also remember playing with friends in the basement using matchsticks or toothpicks, or if we really wanted to be adventurous, pennies. All of the social nuances of those intimate games are missing in the cold, sterile world of cyberspace. You don't even hold your cards. I can't trust a game where I can't hold my cards.
As I child, I remember getting a thrill whenever I heard that we were “having some people over” which frequently meant a game of cards sometime during the visit. Cards meant poker and I was fascinated by the game and social setting. I learned the rules and strategies of five card stud, seven card stud and draw poker in my formative years, either standing at the white, Formica kitchen table or, if I was lucky, and this would thrill me beyond belief, I was told by somebody at the game to “watch my hand” while that player went to the bathroom. This occurred quite a bit as the beverage of choice at most of these games was a concoction called “Rolling Rock” which was ostensibly beer. When I became old enough, my refined pallet required a more sophisticated brew, “Stroh’s”. Anyway, if I was lucky during these episodes I might even get to “call” someone’s bet. This was invariably followed by the player returning to his cards and exclaiming “Why the hell are you calling with this crap?” Since the bets were usually nickels and dimes, or on the rare occasions where someone had four of a kind or better, a quarter, these complaints were just good natured kidding, usually followed by the tousling of my hair. The only exception to those bet limits occured at the end of the game when there would be a few games of "buck showdown". Everyone threw in a dollar and there was no other betting, the winner determined by the best hand in five cards all turned up. Ah, the simplicity.
As my education progressed I learned the more exotic games of “Red Dog” and “Acey Duecy” a particularly insidious game in which a person’s entire stake could be wiped out on the turn of a single card. I know this from painful personal experience. I also learned the poker style of “baseball” a more complicated and intellectual game which had a day and night versions determined by whether the cards were dealt face up or down during the deal and various wild cards determined by such things as the position of the stars.
Anyway, I learned all the intricacies of the game at these sessions, but more than that I saw an interaction of my family that rarely occurred outside of these gatherings. It seemed more like the family gatherings I saw on television. During these games I was always fascinated by my “Uncle Coy” who is one of my more colorful relatives. He always called me “perfessor” because I was evidently the first child in the family to wear glasses, and he spoke the lingo that let one know that here was a real expert in the mysterious world of poker. Whenever he was dealing and playing a game where he was turning cards face up during the deal, he used words like, “cowboy”, “trey”, “bullet” and my personal favorite when somebody got a “jackson” or a “lady”. I thought I would bust a gut whenever Coy said “Ante up and you won’t have so much” to some recalcitrant relative intent on idle chitchat rather than focusing on the matter at hand.
Of course, this is missing in the internet version of poker. In the online world of poker any banter that occurs is usually something like “are there any girls here?” or “do you have any pics of yourself?” As my father used to say, “ssshhhheeeeeeiiiiiiiitttttt”.
During these games I learned more family gossip than I could ever hear anywhere else and sometimes, more than I really wanted to know. This early exposure to poker fostered my continued interest as I got older. And of course it became a very important part of my adolescence. Not as important as girls, but right up there.
My friends and I would literally play anytime and anyplace. At someone’s house when the parents were gone, or sometimes when the parents were there. Some of the more disreputable parents were more than happy to sit in and fleece us neophytes. We played in clearings behind our favorite hangout, the Willo Plaza, which, like my hairline, no longer exists.
One particularly close knit clique I was associated with even had a running game in the library of Willoughby South High School. This was a dicey proposition, as discovery of such shenanigans would almost certainly lead to a trip to Mr. Weiss’ the assistant principal’s office. By the way they had a disciplinary procedure in those days that called swats and Mr. Weiss had a paddle the size of Massachusetts. Our appeals process was limited to “Oh my God, that hurts!” It was really a better way, because it would be over quickly, and we could get on with our game.
This game drove the librarian, Mrs. Keesecker up a wall. We developed ways of secreting our games by holding poker hands inside of books while pretending to be reading and devising an intricate set of hand signals so we wouldn’t give ourselves away by orally stating our bets. She was of course, on to us from day one, but she could never catch us in the act. She even employed various assistants and moles to try and uncover our little operation, but she almost always failed. One day, despite our best efforts, Mrs. Keesecker was on to us, and captured the object of our vice our well worn deck of cards. But she was a kindly lady, behind that stern librarian exterior because she had pity on our wayward souls and didn’t send us off to Mr. Weiss’ chamber of horrors. We gave up the game at that point. We may have been stupid but we were pretty good with odds.
My advice is that if you really want to experience poker, get some friends or family together, open a few brewskis and get down to a good old fashioned social and friendly game of poker. Just keep an eye out for the cops and Mrs. Keesecker.

Love
Dad