world poker tour

one of my very best friends, Special K, threw a Poker Party last night. we were all required to bring a pair of sunglasses and beer. well, shit, I can do that! one small problem, i don't play poker. my husband is the poker player in this pineapple. (spongebob reference, for those of you living under rocks) so i call the husband to tell him that i am going to play poker, last night. he says, and i quote, "WHA?" i SAID, "i am going to play poker tonight." i could see the confused look on his face, THROUGH the phone. i then explained that i was just going to watch and drink beer. 2 things i can do really well. i might even provide commentary, because we all know I can't shut up.

so i get there and everyone is bullshitting and drinking beer... obviously they are psyching themselves up. it takes the boys a little bit to get the game organized... which chips for a quarter, which chips for a dollar, no we have more green ones than red ones, those should be the quarters..... highly DISORGANIZED. i bet the WSOP doesn't have that conversation. and they lay down the "poker" table on top of the dining room table. it was a nice green table, with drink holders and everything. the boys my husband play with have used the "rake" to buy a nice fancy one that they move the dining room table out of the way to play. they have purchased vegas chips and get pretty serious. its 40 bucks just to sit your booty in the chair.
so the boys, excuse me, men... get down to bidness. that leaves, me, heather, justin, and special K to watch. justin and K grab 2 stools and drag them over to the game to do commentary. they start using their pseudo hushed golf voices. "and lance has big slick and here comes the flop, OH, that won't help him at all...." we got bored with that and since justin and i don't know how/want to play poker, we bust out UNO! that's right ladies and gentleman. UNO. the fast paced game of strategy, skill, and thwarting your opponents. now, the last time we played UNO, it was at the lake. and we played MY VERSION: drUnkEn UnO. the one where if you draw two, you drink two..... you get skipped, you gotta sip, throw a wild, drink it, child. yes, even I can make a drinking game out of something so harmless as UNO. but we played the regular way, last night. and UNO will tell you who your real friends are. if your friend skips you 6 times, you might want to re-evaluate things. you might want to reconsider them for the christmas card list. while we were playing UNO, some more people showed up, the pizza showed up and the poker game was still going strong. we started placing bets on who was going to stand up in outrage and get pissed off at their buddy, who was going to tell them to shut up and who was going to make a joke out of the whole thing. it was hard to take these boys seriously, since one of them was wearing a pair of Jimmy Neutron sunglasses. K went to Big Lots and purchased fun glasses for those amateurs who forgot to bring theirs. she even bought diving goggles, which justin wore during the powerful game of UNO, until they started to fog up.

so heather won UNO and she, K, eileen, and her husband went to go start their own poker game. that left me. and justin. well, we knew how to improvise. we decided to learn how to play Skip-Bo. neither of us had ever played, so it was truly an adventure. we opened he box and found not one deck of cards, but three. oh jeebus, this was going to be involved. we counted the cards, 162 total and began to read the instructions. we were each dealt 30! cards. that is called our "stock" pile. then there will be the rest of the deck, that is called the "draw" pile. then we have 4 piles in front of us called the "discard" pile. there are 18 skip-bo cards also known as "wild cards" i looked at justin and said, "wild cards??? have we been immunized?" he raised his beer, we clink and drink, and thus became "immunized" we were ready! we had also taken a blue, a white, and a black chip and set them by our "stock piles" see, we were playing with poker chips too. now the counter where we were playing had now become the "Skip-Bo Arena". we checked the diagram of all the piles, using a screwdriver as a pointer, to help point out the exact location of the cards that will be played in the Arena. we shook hands and began. it was slow going at first. because there was so much strategy involved. you have to make 4 piles in the middle of the Arena starting with 1 and consecutively increasing to 12. once all of the piles reach 12, you shuffle them in with the "draw" pile and continue playing. the first person to use up all of their cards in their "stock" pile, wins. difficult, no? i thought justin was cheating since he kept running out of cards. kinda like when my grandfather use to play scrabble with us and would say, "i don't have anymore room for my tiles", and he would have 10 tiles. but i digress... the game lasted almost an hour. the guys over at the poker table kept making fun of us by calling out, "SKIP-BO!" see, they were jealous. they had to play stupid, ole poker and here we were playing the rousing game of Skip-Bo. nanny nanny boo boo.
as the "stock" piles are dwindling, we start throwing in our chips. i checked him when i had double trip 8's. a great hand by any standard! he then called me when he ended up with 5 12's. i think double trip 8's beats quintuple 12's ANY day. so, the game is progressing. him, still cheating. but i cant prove it. i am sure of it. he had that look in his eye and the eyebrow that twitched when he uncovered another card from his "stock" pile. finally i am All-In. and we both have 2 cards left in our "stock" pile. he throws an 11, flips over his last card... and it was a 12. DAMMIT! just when i thought i had him cornered. i still maintain that he was cheating. he must have looked at my cards, when he stepped away from the arena to get another beer. to justin i demand a REMATCH! i will defeat you, you Skip-Bo cheater, you!

after the game was finished, we shook hands and watched the others playing poker. K's friend Lance wasn't doing so well at his poker game, so i turned his hat inside out as a rally cap. he began to turn his luck around. until jeremy knocked the hat off his head, and then it was tainted and ruined the rally. spoil sport.

i started to get tired, since i have been sick this past week and it was well past my bedtime. i came home and went to sleep. i had super fun. and i will triumph at Skip-Bo next time! you hear me, Justin Cheater Pants?