I’m not certain how I got into Poker; my grandfather was a cribbage nut, and — subsequently — that was the game I played as a child.

Euchre was the card game in high school.  We played it at lunch, during spares . . . maybe that’s what kept me out of trouble.

At various points during the ensuing decade, I played hearts and gin rummy.  But poker?  That was for the Kenny Rogers set, wasn’t it?

Poker, as you likely know, went mainstream in buckets in the ’90s when on-line .  And now?  You can currently get deeply-discounted World Series of Poker brand playing cards, chip sets, and fold-up table covers with cupholders and chip stack recessions in Walmart.

Look around long enough, and you’ll no doubt find All-In Condoms® “for your short stack.”™

The purpose of all this yammering, incidentally, is to harken back to this entry, wherein I found myself with a seat at the Degree Poker Championship in Niagara Falls.  To make a very long story short, I took some vacation days and attended.

The Niagara Fallsview Casino. Ontario, Canada.

After a long, lon-n-nng bus ride (I left the car with the more sensible half of my marriage), the casino — indeed, the city — was quite a treat on the eyes.  Time didn’t permit exploration, however; I hadn’t slept while taking the overnight bus, getting a room would be an unnecessary expense (especially if I bombed out), and I had to get ready for the tourney.

So.  With no sleep and aching (”Leave the Driving to Us”) butt, I sat down with 240 other people for the preliminary round.  My spot looked like this:

This was the total starting stack.  Players’ cards were
punched as they washed out.

I’ll spare you the play-by-play.  Past ‘final table’ players and those with other TV exposure burned fast, then burned out.  The preliminary round I played in resulted in 24 survivors . . . and I was in their number.  Unfortunately, it would be a few days until the next round commenced.  I had to take the bus home and look forward to a later round trip, too.

Oh, you don’t know the money Washington will pay to refute this little gem:

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Large Study Finds No Link between Marijuana and Lung Cancer

Don’t know who you are?

OkCupid has a battery of tests that’ll tell you several things, some of which may be accurate. Or not. They’re a better-than-average means of wasting some time while waiting for online poker opponents to fold.

Examples:

1. My political stripe.

2. My Intuition Type

More Scientific You have: 77% SCIENTIFIC INTUITION and 70% EMOTIONAL INTUITION The graph on the right represents your place in Intuition 2-Space. As you can see, you scored above average on emotional intuition and well above average on scientific intuition.Your scientific intuition is stronger than your emotional intuition. Your Emotional Intuition score is a measure of how well you understand people, especially their unspoken needs and sympathies. A high score score usually indicates social grace and persuasiveness. A low score usually means you’re good at Quake.Your Scientific Intuition score tells you how in tune you are with the world around you; how well you understand your physical and intellectual environment. People with high scores here are apt to succeed in business and, of course, the sciences. Try my other test! The 3 Variable Funny Test It rules. My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 83% on Scientific You scored higher than 59% on Interpersonal Link: The 2-Variable Intuition Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

OkCupid is a dating site, so — if you’re married and are in it for the tests — try not to get picked up.

A million people will blog this, but it’s the sort of thing you just can’t ignore . . .

Philadelphia Daily News | 05/18/2006 | A GENITAL REMINDER