Female poker geek anonymous

Yesterday was home game with my colleagues again. We meet up about once a month to play 10c/20c NLHE. It is a loose, but sometimes aggressive game. At the end of the night people leave either about 20-50$ winner or loser, so it’s not quite life-changing money, but hey, you can buy yourself a nice lunch the next day or fill up you tank with that money.

Everybody brings beer and other beverages and the host usually has some Doritos or similar that makes the round. After about 2-3 hours we call the pizza and a huge thing is delivered, I’m telling you, the thing has a 1m diameter, at least 3 feet. So you know it’s a fun sort of game, where it seems like we never left college, even though there are a few higher up staff and profs that attend the game. Yep, geeks never change.

There are a couple of people that actually play poker a bit more “seriously”. One guy plays MTTs and SnGs with a three figure BR on Pokerstars, the other plays some low limit cash games either at Commerce or when he goes traveling for work. But none as involved as I, obviously :P

I’m writing this with a big smile on my face. It’s just everything a home game should be like. The banter, the making fun, the throwing of insults. And it’s also what I like in a nice conversation. I was never the one to go out with a girlfriend and talk about my guy trouble or something like that. Even with my best friends there have been a lot of “personal talk” crashes and in the end we just end up drunk and silly, I like it much more that way.

But in a sense I’m much more aware of you when I’m playing a game with you. I just saw a 60 minute piece on this music savant, Derek (link, skip the Michael Lewis story). He was blind and in a way started opening up to people, started to communicate with people through his music. Well, in a way, I kinda understand you when you play a game with me. As a kid in high school it would be Chess, later Magic: The Gathering, nowadays it’s poker. So somehow I feel like I know these people (even though some are just distant colleagues) and in such a nice atmosphere I feel much better than if I was grabbing some coffee with a girlfriend to talk about the hookup she had last night.

But enough about this psycho-babble, I’ll leave you with a fun hand from last night:

We have the hammer (72o) payout rule among 3-4 people in the game like in High Stakes Poker. If you win with the hammer and show, the people participating in it have to pay the guy with the hammer 50 cents.

Game is 8 handed and as said, very loose. I fold some crap UTG, guy next to me (gambol fun guy) raises to 75c, his gf (one of their first dates, so everybody is very nice to her) is next to act and goes all-in for something like 1.30$, two people call (one nit, and the host in BB) + original gambol guy.

Flop (4 players, 1all-in, 5.50$): A :heart: A :club: Q :spade: (don’t quote me on the suits, but it was rainbow)

Original raiser bets something like 3$, the two callers fold. He proudly tables 72o and demands the money. The whole table literally explodes with laughter. He still has to win against the all-in, the hammer-rule is for the main pot of course. Girlfriend has internet aces (JTs) and wins unimproved. Poor guy gets ribbed for his “play” for at least an hour by us.

Oh, and in case you wanna hear my brag: I have never ever lost more than pizza money in this game. My biggest scores have been 160$ and 90$ and I left 40$ richer last night. A LHE player can play NLHE sometimes :P