On January 22, 1989 several of us got together to play poker. It was at a company Super Bowl party. We agreed to play again the following month and then the next month and then the month after and so on. Within a year we had pretty well established the permanent group of players. We’ve played together every single month since 1989. That’s over 24 years.
Not many people have had the privilege of getting together with the same group of guys for any period of time anywhere near 24 years. So, as I think back on my life, one of the highlights has certainly been poker.
The original group circa 2004. From left to right... Kent, Joe, Charles, Martin, Todd, Kipp.
I should point out that I quit the group a few months before I took my life because I knew I needed to concentrate on getting everything done by August 15th, 2013 and I had to make cuts in order to be sure I could accomplish everything I wanted to do before I ran out of time. I didn’t tell any of my poker buddies about my plans, but then I didn’t tell anyone about them – including my sister – who is responsible for closing my chapter on this earth.
The founding members of the Poker group were myself, Kent, Joe, Charles and Kipp. We had another regular member (Dave Elliott) who died of cancer January 13, 1996. He was replaced by Todd. About 10 years ago, we went to seven players and added Scott. These are some of my best friends. I’ve known Charles since we were in middle school in western Kansas. Kent and I go back to our freshman year in college in 1971. Joe and I have been in business together at various times beginning in 1983. I also worked with Kipp in 1984. I’ve known Todd since 1987. Scott and I go back only about a dozen years. But, you can see that even before we began playing poker in 1989, I had known most of these guys for considerably longer.
"Poker is a game of people – it’s not the hand I hold; it’s the people I play with." -- 'Amarillo Slim' Preston
Our version of poker isn’t like anyone else’s. Over the years we invented and developed our own games. We also only played with quarters. We played a game three straight times, then switched to another for three straight, etc. We played every third Friday of the month (unless it didn’t work out and needed to be moved to the second or fourth Friday). And, we always played from 7PM to midnight. This might seem somewhat rigid, but it worked for us.
Each person would host poker every 7th month. Originally, we all lived in Topeka, but I moved to Kansas City in 1998 and Kipp moved to KC shortly after that. Scott lived in KC already. Even when some of us were in KC, we only played in Topeka – the theory being that the guys that moved away should have to travel the hour to play. However, when it became four in Topeka and three in KC over the last 10 years, we simply played at each person’s house every seventh month no matter where they lived.
Obviously, for a large part of my adult life, poker once a month was very important and I wouldn’t have traded it for much of anything. It was never an issue with either of my wives because it was a great way to get away from me for one night a month!
"The smarter you play, the luckier you’ll be." -- Mark Pilarski
Nobody ever made a ton of money or lost much either. An extremely profitable night would be +$100 and an extremely bad night might be -$50. So, you can see, it wasn’t about the money – just fun. That’s why we only used quarters and we had one dollar limits on raises as well as two rounds maximum for betting. It kept most pots at $20 or less.
"If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." -- Paul Newman
Most of our games involved two winners. The benefit of that is that more people got to be part of the process. In addition, the dealer would always ante for everyone so that we didn’t have to spend a bunch of time trying to figure out who put their ante in and who didn’t.
"A Smith & Wesson beats four aces." -- American Proverb
Since all the games were custom made, it wasn’t really practical to have guests. They wouldn’t have the faintest idea what was going on. Fortunately, for all those years, we had such great stability in our group that it just wasn’t necessary to fill chairs with outsiders.
"Old card players never die, they just shuffle away." -- Unknown
Lastly, I put together a printed copy of all the rules and games for our poker club. You can click here.
Copyright 2013 Martin Manley Life and Death. All rights reserved.