1. 2008-09-05 05:55:13

   Other Gamblings

   Howdy folks. Long time... I've been away from poker a bit, so there's not much to say. A friend of mine came in to work the other day with a Euchre shirt on. For those of you who don't know, it's a card game :p It's a MidWest thing, and I have played it plenty. My friend is from Chicago, so it made sense, but it was still a little weird. That stirred up some fond memories of family and friends from long ago. Last week I made a blog comment regarding my early card game training, which consisted of Rummy 500 and Cribbage with my grandmas, as long back as I can remember. I've always been into card and strategy games, which got me thinking...

   Dan Harrington, a master chess and Backgammon player, has also mentioned parallels between other games and poker. For example, I recall reading how he explained equity was a very important concept in Backgammon. It's all about having certain percentage chances to win various values of points if you make a certain move. Poker is very similar, but for cash. As Doyle Brunson says in the intro to Poker After Dark, "Poker actually isn't about winning and losing. Poker's about making the right decision." You might not win every time, but if you have equity in front of you, you don't want to leave it on the table. If you want to get into backgammon, nothing will make you a more serious player faster than gambling for real money. I poked around a bit, and this online backgammon site seems pretty good.

   While I was poking around on that site, I came across their online pool game, too. I'm a big billiards fan, so that's pretty cool. We've always had a pool table where I work right now. In fact, over a year ago we bought a ping pong table top to put over it and we just recently removed that to get back into pool. It's amazing how much skill you can lose by not practicing. I better practice up for a while before I start trying to take people's lunch money ;)

   A few years back I started getting into chess again, which has taught me some patience, but it is very different from poker in that there is no hidden information. Gleaning this hidden information has been a strong point of mine, so chess isn't as interesting. Not much money in it for me, either ;) Craig's bughouse games are a blast, though. Make sure you come to the next one!

   Posted by Jason M at 2008-09-05 05:55:13

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Comments on “Other Gamblings”

1. • Posted by Jason M g 2008-09-16 17:41:42
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   • Agreed

2. • Posted by Ken (unverified) g 2008-09-10 23:08:00
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   • I miss Euchre too. I used to play for HOURS - for money too! We should get a game going one day - that'd be pretty fun!

3. • Posted by Luke (unverified) g 2008-09-05 17:15:04
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   • Man I used to love Eucre back in MI, what a fun game.

     If you dont want to download the software or are on a mac like me, Orbitz has a pretty addicting pool game...

     http://www.orbitzgames.com/arcade_pool.aspx?taf=true