Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Maniacs 1, Drizz 0


"He owns him"

Chatting about the Chan-Seidel Main Event WSOP final table in Rounders

Head over to Up4Poker this morning and tell G-Rob to sharpen up his Euchre game before attempting to take on this self-confirmed Bad Boy of the Right Bower.

While I SHOULD have been concentrating on a $50 PLO8 table that featured an all-in Every. Single. Hand. I chatted it up with several other of the poker blogger contingent and we had an itch to scratch...

The time: Mid 1990s.

The place: North Hennipin Community College and "The Townhouse"

The game: Euchre

The days of when the Unibomer was an international terriorist and not bouncing the bouncy Jennifer Tilly. The WSOP was something that was on ESPN (if you had cable) once a year and replayed at 2am after Women's Lumberjacking Championships sectional qualifiers. There was a revolving game that was not played for money on most nights, but for pride. It was argued more fiercely then any variation poker. We played at a speed that would make the 6-max table freaks at Party cringe in terror and cry for mommy.

We played Euchre.

We would play until it was time to head to McD's in the morning for a Sausage McMuffin, hash brown, and a cream cheese danish. Then maybe go to a class or two if we didn't drink too much the night/morning before. But, we'd always meet up in the student union to play more. It seems asinine now about how we played for several years at parties and very rarely for more then to be king of the table for the night.

Those were the times though.

People waited impatiently to sit down and square off versus the opposing teams. Many nights we discussed writing a strategy book called "Extreme Euchre" which now sounds about as appealing as heading up to the local Legion/Moose/VFW Hall to see if there's even a game going. We played in tournaments for a dime a point in a "king-of-the-court" styled contest against people three to four times our age.

And loved every minute of it, well that and the beer specials they'd have for tournament players.

Texas Hold Em' is the game of choice nowadays. Sure, if people are tapped or there's no money to trade among friends we'll play a quick game. But gone are the days of 6am runs to McDs while half in the bag. Or going to class trying to understand a professor's teachings of marketing terms and strange symboled mathematic equations with left bower and a back plays from the games last night sitting on the brain.

While it was only 1am that we played until this morning, it was definitely cool to be playing an "uncool" game. Thanks Princess, CJ, and G-Rob for reminding me of days I'd forgotten lately, due to chasing a toddler running around with a miniature football after a long day at work. I don't know if I'll stay up that late again (hey 4:30am for work comes pretty damn early...), but I'm sure there will be some alone bids coming in the future.

----------------------------------------------------

The PartyPoker maniac got the best of me last night when I made an attempt to play back at him the draw didn't come through and I was forced to abandon the hand. In fact I never held cards in two hours that WOULD have won. Last night it was about the cards, if you hit, your were going to get paid off. Unfortunately a cold deck slapped me in the face and I lost a buy-in. Not a horrible result considering how many buy-ins were flying around that table last night due to suck-outs and overly aggressive play. I don't think there was much strategy needed at this table since one guy would raise pre-flop 100% of the time and pot-sized bets/raises would come out no matter how coordinated the flop. Three to a flush flopped? Two pair was good enough to take it down. Wild night and I tightened up big time, but for every A23X double suited (all two of them) the flop came out all high or the an A23 flop would kill my hand.

Thanks for dropping by, now who wants to head to Cleveland, OH with me for the WORLD SERIES OF EUCHRE?!?!?!?!?!

I am such a dork. Have a good day folks :)

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