poker

November Daily Game Challenge: No-Limit Hold Em Poker

This is Day 3 of my Game-and-Blog-Every-Day-in-November Challenge. Search my blog for “Daily Game Challenge” for previous entries.

No-Limit Hold Em Poker

ezgif.com-optimize (46)

IMG_20181103_211404-COLLAGE

No board games today; instead, I went back to my roots and played a few hours of no-limit hold em poker.

Today was our annual fantasy basketball draft, which meant a day of drafting our fantasy teams, eating way too much, having a few drinks, watching the UFC fights, and playing some poker.

Years ago this was my idea of game night: poker played until the wee hours of the morning, with lots of laughs, bluffs, and action on the felt. I’ve had a few regular poker games fizzle out due to life happening: work, marriages, children, etc., so it was nice to get some of my old buddies together for a game.

In the words of Ice Cube, today was a good day.

Fantasy Football

No Limit Texas Hold Em

No Limit Texas Hold Em

My annual fantasy football draft was today, so there is no board gaming to talk about. Actually, I did score used copies of Takenoko and Imperial Settlers for over half off MSRP, thanks to a boardgamegeek.com auction. I picked up the games on the way to the draft, so that was nice.

It was all about football today, though. My league held its 17th annual draft and there were plenty of jokes about old age. Every year we tell the same types of jokes about players and we still laugh every time. We also joke about each others’ teams and how bad they are, or we praise others’ teams before trashing it. And every year there are more and more jokes about old age.

We don’t do board games, but we do poker. It’s not as much as our younger years (before everybody started getting married and having children), but when we do it’s like the fantasy football draft itself: we laugh at the same jokes and enjoy each others’ company.

While the poker sessions no longer rage all night and into the morning, it’s still the best time with this group of guys. I can’t wait to do the same thing next year.

Day 69: Gaming Success

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride

I’m not a hardcore gamer. I have friends who are, but outside of the increasingly rare session of poker, I don’t play video games or board games or card games or dice games.

But the times they are a-changin’.

Confession: I have a like-new copy of Carcassone sitting in storage somewhere. Or maybe I passed it along to my stepdaughter; I don’t remember. What I do remember is that when I bought it 10+ years ago, I gave it a trial run or two and it didn’t stick. Back then my idea of game night was hours-long sessions of poker: limit and no-limit Hold Em, Omaha, Stud, Draw, Razz, Badugi, and other variations. You name it, my buddies and I played it into the wee hours of the morning.

Forward to today: I don’t play much poker, but now I’m wish-listing, buying, and playing games like there’s no tomorrow. The latest and greatest addition to my collection was Ticket to Ride. Back in January I bought Pandemic and have played it dozens of times, but only as a solo game. My wife played it with me once, but wasn’t really into it. No problemo, since it played so well with one player. But when I bought Ticket to Ride last week, I was a bit nervous. What if my wife didn’t like it? The only solo variants I found online didn’t sound as good, since it’s not a cooperative game in which roles could be shared by one player.

Thankfully, my wife enjoyed Ticket to Ride. Success! We played three games over the weekend and had a blast. I had read many reviews (and watched the TTR Tabletop episode, of course) about how elegant and simple the game was to learn, and it’s true. It only took a few turns to get the hang of gameplay and after each game we discussed strategies and other nuances. Not only has it been a lot of fun, but it’s also quality time with the missus: a win-win, obviously.