I promised a Sunday post, and though it is 7 minutes into Monday, here it is!
Back in the day (the day being a year or so ago), Ro and I played poker. Kind of a lot. I, for example, visited the fair city of Las Vegas like 4 times in one year. We were part of a weekly poker game, usually cash, sometimes tournament. It consisted of maybe 10 or so regulars, 7 or 8 of which would show up on any given week.
It was a really fun way to spend a solid 5 or so hours hanging out with people. By the hour, it was cheaper than a movie (unless you were having a terrible night), the host usually made us cookies, and sometimes you got to make some money. We all played fairly conservatively, but with different styles and with enough quirks and random plays to keep it interesting. Sometimes, on a really great night, chairs were thrown. Everyone had an awesome nickname (ask Ro what hers was).
I'm not a particularly good poker player. I'm not bad at the lying part of bluffing, but I am bad at the putting in enough money to make it work part. So generally, I play fairly conservatively. I've improved - I've learned to slow play better, and to project things I don't have better, and to play in position better. But if you saw me play, I think we would all agree I'm not in the hobby for the money.
After graduation, we stopped playing, largely because our venerable host moved to Dorchester, and perhaps topping my list of things I don't want to do at 7pm on a Sunday is go to Dorchester. Actually, no, that's second. The first is returning from Dorchester at 11pm. We really enjoy playing, I even have a full chip set, but good lord, we are lazy.
But last weekend was Labor Day weekend, so we made the trek for a three-table, $20-buy-in tournament. I was out incredibly early but we quickly started up a nice cash game where I more than made back my lost entry. Ro came in third (!), losing second place only because the other two players in at that point were a girl playing her first cash game and her BOYFRIEND. I'm just saying.
While there, we promised we'd come to the next regular Sunday cash game, as it was being held at a different apartment somewhat closer to us (though not much, it turns out, hence the lateness of this post). At the tournament we had discovered that the regulars from our old cash game who had moved out of state (or stopped coming out of utter laziness) had been replaced by 7 or so underaged college kids. Their play style is notably different than ours, and involves things like $14 pre-flop raises (during a $20 cash game), repeatedly playing 5-6 off suit and WINNING until finally someone with a real hand calls him and takes him down while everyone slow claps because they are so glad that he got his comeuppance, and trash-talking each other as well as girls (just generally) to the point of slowing the game to a crawl. One side of the table held five people over the age of 20, and considerably fewer hands were played on that side.
Apart from the frustrating (for us old folks) style of play, Ro and I were discussing on the way home that we wanted to sit each of this kids down and have a chat with them. Tell them to maybe stop spending money they don't have and crapping around playing poker and drinking beer in an apartment on Sunday night. Warn them that college actually can matter, and that we ourselves wish someone had warned us about having at least the rudimentary outlines of a plan before we stumbled our way through four rather meandering years at college and shortsightedly struggled through three MORE years of school we maybe didn't need to go through. It was a night of mixed feelings - we laughed at the immature insults they tossed at each other, because in its way its endearing (though not admirable or "good"), but we felt bad that they seemed to just be screwing around in a way that they may come to regret later.
Kind of like repeatedly betting on that stupid 5-6. Asshat.
