Recently, I was invited over to a friend’s house for what he described to me gleefully as “whacky poker.” Basically it went something like this, it’s a cash game where the dealer would get to choose the game and was encouraged to come up with the craziest rules they could think of (as long as everyone at the table could follow them).

For example, one game we played called “Rory fucks shit up,” which was Omaha High were a person named Rory (who wasn’t playing) gets to take two cards out of your hole cards after a flop and two rounds of betting. Another game we played is where some random party guest wrote on a piece of paper a random card… that card would be considered trump… and if you held it, whoever was left after the river, won no matter what anyone else had. Another game that we called “Thieves in the Silo” was your basic 5 card draw, except after a round of betting, the player to the right of you got to pick two cards out of your hand and put them in their hand.

I was dubious at first of playing such craziness… as evident of my early loss of my initial buy-in. But after I got into the spirit of the thing, I actually had a lot of fun. And it was great to stretch my brain in new ways and to think outside of the box of playing Texas Hold’em for several hours EVERY DAY.

Not only was it fun, but I think it has a lot of potential for benefit to my game. If only for the fact that it makes poker fun and, well, goofy. It involves some of the same skills but in a way that ends up refreshing your brain. Like taking a long coffee break in the middle of sitting at cubicle trying to figure out the latest network problem (my old job).

So I say, plan a night every month or so where you and your friends get together and just play to have fun. With games that goofy, it also helps if you drink a lot…. something that doesn’t really apply to “real” poker.

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