Poker-Faced

Sigh. I'm quite bleary eyed again this morning :) ... after another late-ish night (they're not really late nights, but coupled with my 05h40 alarm clock, anything past 10pm means an extra few smacks on the snooze button!).

Last night I headed off to my first Girl's Poker Night. Sadly Maroon (my invite and the only friendly face I knew there) was home sick in bed. But I decided to put my big girl panties on and go anyway (how scary could a bunch of poker-playing girls be anyway, right?). What fun we had :) There were 7 girls there and one guy, our "teacher". We played a few practice round as he got everyone accustomed to the rules and the flow of play and debriefed every game so that we will hopefully soon start to think strategically (the thing I'm sorely lacking in my own poker game). I think it was super handy to play like this because although I know all the rules and combinations, I really have never been playing with anything more than gut-feel. So it's really nice to hear what other people are thinking while playing and how you should actually have been thinking.

By the time we started playing for real, I won the first two hands (although I really shouldn't have) and amassed a nice pile of change. But I soon lost a fair amount. And then came back with a vengeance to clean up 2nd and win back my original R100 contribution (R50 for the dealer/teacher guy and R50 for the pot). It was marvelous fun and I can't wait to do it all again next month. And of course, it's always fabulous to meet some new potential friends :) Oooh, and I nearly forgot ... one of the ladies I was playing against was none other than The Fairy Godmother.