Poker Party

Last night, I got together with a group of friends for our almost-annual Ladies' Poker Night, an item we all bid on at our church’s service auction. We had a couple of tables of poker going all evening, playing mostly for pennies and nickels. We weren’t overly competitive (especially since we donate our winnings to a local cause each year), and we tried to mix up the games as much as possible. Besides the usual draw and stud poker games, we played Hi-Low, Pass the Trash, Spit in the Ocean, Lowball, 3-2-1 Left, Baseball, No Peeky, Cold Hands, 7-27, and Blind Man’s Bluff Poker (that’s the one where you hold your unseen card up to your forehead and bet on whether you think yours is the highest), plus every other game any one of us could remember. Thanks to our hostess (a veritable Martha Stewart of the poker theme), we kept our energy levels up by consuming mass quantities of high brow snacks, beer, wine and chocolates. I kept dipping into my tub o’ coins without really keeping track of how I was doing, but I suspect I ended up in the red at the end of the night. Although I definitely made up for it in shrimp, Toblerone and cheesecake bites.