Poker @ Mah Papis

So, it is time for my inaugural trip to my dad's house for his monthly poker night. They play dime/quarter, big better is a buck, three raise max. Initially, I thought that was cheap as hell so I was thinking I would only need like $10 total.

When I get there, my dad has his poker table all set up and he's getting the sodas ready. He's like, "I'm gonna buy you in for this first one." I was thinking to myself, oooookkkkk. He hands me $100. I was like,"am I really gonna need this much?" And said yea.

The guys show up and we play till about quarter to 2am. I was down about $15. The only "normal" games we played were high chicago and low chicago, holdem and omaha. The rest of the time we played crazy games like 727, 357, hoggers, 10/20/30. Here is the break down for a couple of these crazy games.

357 -

Ante a quarter. When you have 3 cards, 3s are wild, 5 cards 5s are wild, 7 cards 7s are wild. Everyone gets dealt 3 cards to start. Each player in order decides whether they are in or pass. If you are in, you are betting that you have the best 3 card hand. If someone challenges you, you secretly show each other your hand. The winner pays the loser the amount that is in the pot, but you don't pay until later. If no one challenges you, you get a chip marker. Dealer deals two more cards for 5 total and now 3s are no longer wild, but 5s are. Again, each player chooses in or pass, same as during the 3 cards. Then two more cards come for a total of 7 and 7s are wild (not 5s or 3s). After everyone chooses in or pass. You throw your cards in. This is the point where the losers pay out the winners of the challenges (this is really where you make the money in this game). The reason you wait to payout till now is because this is a bluffing game, if you paid out earlier, then you might tip the game to who had the better hand in the challenge, etc. You repeat this process until someone has three chip markers in front of them at the end of a round and then they win the pot. Before each round, everyone antes a quarter so that increased the pot $1.75 each round.

I got really burned by this game the first time I played it and ended up paying out like $14 the first time to lost challenges. More than likely with the wilds, anything lower than a full house is dead in the water (I called with an Ace high straight and lost to a full house and a 4 of a kind). You can bluff in late position and steal a couple chip markers here and there though. I give this game about a B+ after I got the hang of it.

727 -

I hate this game, it's a point game. Aces are worth 1/11, faces are worth half a point, everything else is it's value. The object is trying to get as close to 7 or 27 as possible. You start with a card face down and a card face up. Everyone checks or bets. then you decide if you want a card or not. If you don't, you put a chip on your cards. Then another round of betting. If you get three chips on your cards then you can't get another card. The pots for this game were upwards of something like $40 or so. I was beaten with 26 and a half to someone that pulled a perfect card draw like 7 cards into his hand...twice. This game is also a huge bluffing game, but it can get expensive. If your first card showing is really low, like a 4 or a face, then you can just start stacking chips on your cards even if you have a 9 or 10 down low. But again, it gets real expensive real fast.

Overall I had a blast and learned some new games. Sitting around the table with a straight wing pilot, a guy from SWAT, a trucker fuqer (they only monitor the commercial trucks on the highways) and a couple of friends was a blast. I'm looking forward to next time.

Oh...and I got to drive my dads Rolls Royce. Now that is a nice car.