Poker
How basic should I get? Poker is the single best game ever invented, maybe even better than my old favorite, Hungry Hungry Hippos. All you really need to play is a deck of cards and some stupid friends with money (I’m still talking about poker; for Hungry Hungry Hippos you need an official original game, an expert forgery of the original, or an extremely expensive and dangerous trip to the Congo).
However, for a more serious game of poker, you should probably use a table and some chips (also called ‘crisps’ by players from the UK). The most popular type of poker is called Texas Hold’em, because it originally involved being restrained by cowboys who would then search you for valuables before leaving you dead in a dusty ditch on the back road out of El Paso. Happened to me twice — true story!
Anyway, poker usually involves a dealer, who shuffles (mixes up) the cards and then deals (hands them out one by one) to the rest of the players. The players take a look at their cards and decide how much they’re worth, and then try to guess how much everyone else’s cards might be worth by watching their body language and subsequent bets.
This makes poker a little too easy if you can read minds, but a little too hard if you’re blind (braille cards and tin foil hats can mitigate some of these difficulties). If you’re somewhere in the middle, keep reading. If none of this sounds good at all, head on over to an online casino USA and makes sure to read their wonderful online slots reviews!
Each round of a poker hand lets the players call, raise, or fold (some other options exist for different games, but I don’t want to confuse myself while I’m just learning, so go slow and I’ll try to keep up). A “call” matches the going bet, a “raise” makes a higher going bet, and a “fold” helps keep your clothes look better until you wear them. Oh, actually, a fold is when you decide to stop betting and get the heck out of the current hand before you make an even bigger fool of yourself than you already have.
And on that note…
