How many of you freaks participate? I've kinda caught the bug in the last month. Not obsessed, but I could see it happening if I'm not careful. Anyway, I'm off to www.absolutepoker.net . all free, all the time.

<-----plans on becoming obsessed.

I love that game, watching the pro tournaments is my latest TV hobby.

I play regularly and have a live bankroll.

I'm sitting this one out, but I'm waiting for the television to tell me what trend to jump on next.

Maybe it'll be soap operas. You could get a better job.

You're such an individual. I love you for it. I bet that new Audioslave song really does it for you. Wait, I saw that on TV. Uh-oh for me. Time to get a short guitar strap and a commie hat.

oh billy

[img][240:300]http://www.offworlddesigns.com/media/RulesLawyer.gif[/img]

I'm personally really happy poker is popular now. 4 years ago, I had a much tougher time making serious money at this game, but now it's a lot easier.

is it a lot easier because there are a lot of dumbasses out there playing now?

i recently learned this game, and loved it...but i'm nowhere near ready to start playing for real money.

When I 'worked' in a recording studio we used to play poker all the time.

I've not played since then though and I've forgotten most of the rules.

yep....back in the late 90s when I started playing there were mainly pros playing middle to big limits

nowadays anybody plays....it's great

Good God! Why doesn't this stuff ever happen to ME??????

from the Washington Post, April 12, 2005:

Simon Says: Texas Hold 'Em!

Only in Washington does a pop star go for a drink and a bunch of lawyers get lucky. Duran Duran frontman Simon LeBon, in town for the Brit band's Patriot Center gig last weekend, walked into CityZen at the Mandarin Oriental hotel Thursday night, fresh from seeing "Sin City" and in search of a nightcap. A group of lawyers from Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, who are all appropriately twenty- to thirty-something (i.e., Generation Duran), bought a round for the rocker and proceeded to close the place down with the guy.

But wait! That's when LeBon announced that he had always wanted to learn to play Texas Hold 'Em, and who better to teach him than four sharks . . . er, four young Washington lawyers? And so associates John Anderson, Dave Last, Carter Williams and Lisa Pellegrino played poker -- with toothpicks instead of money -- in LeBon's room until 3:30 a.m. to a soundtrack from his iPod. No word on who won, but LeBon came through with eight front-row seats to the next night's sold-out show, plus (grrrrr) backstage passes. "He's just a very nice guy and obviously true to his word," Williams fawned yesterday.

I play a home game every week or so.

Dealers choice... often, we play crazy games that are made up on the spot. Midnight chicago hi/lo split..... 7 card stud hi/lo roll-em.... shit like that.

But our staple games are omaha, hold 'em, stud and draw. Usually some combination of all these games are played.

Scarne is the game of choice at my home game....it is seriously POKER CRACK.

how do you play scarrrrrrrrrne?

Nothing beats winning your first hand in Vegas.

The Sahara has an awesome, nightly game at 7p where a lot of locals and ESPN regulars show up. My guy got busted by Annie Tran! She caught a lucky Jack on the river. My highlight, getting 4 aces in a Luxor limit tourney... unfortunately for me, it was limit.

ME TOO!!

it's a bit crazy at first, but super addictive. Essentially, it's a flop game, but with two rows instead of one. The top row plays as a poker row, but the bottom row plays as a bingo row. You are dealt five cards to start and both 5 card rows are dealt face down. After a betting round, three cards of each row are exposed. You must drop the cards that are exposed on the bottom row onto that row and play the top row with your remaining cards. This continues when the turn and river occur, in which one card of each row is exposed.

The pot is split between the best poker hand and the lowest point total. Aces count as one, numbers count as their value, and all face cards count as ten. A single hand can take both. If you have a hand like AAxxx, you have a great two way hand, especially if you flop an ace in the poker row and drop a lot of your remaining cards. Oh yeah, and if you drop all five cards you automatically scoop.

A better variant of this game is "dark scarne" in which you don't expose which cards you drop until after the final betting round, so nobody knows if you are going high or low.

Ah, recognition.


We play a little 6-8 person home game about every other week now, depending on people's schedules. We just each put up $10, dole out chips, winner takes all. Little $50 haul every once in a while is nice, and $10 is not too much for the wife to complain about.