My Friend Travis

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Is freaking insane. In a good way. We've been playing a weekly home game of Texas Hold Em for about two months now, with a pretty good turnout of anywhere between 7-12 players a night. Nothing crazy, $20 buy-in, 25 and 50 cent blinds that don't go up through the night. I say these things like an old hand at the game but that's the fun of it - I'm not, I've just been learning as I go and there's a good mix of newbies and sharks. We've been having a really good time and there's even been some super dramatic hands, like a royal flush! More to the point, Travis has a nice bachelor pad that he's kindly donated to the cause and allowed us to trample on a regular basis. He bought a place near UCSD and it's near perfect - lots of space, clean kitchen, nice sound system that my iPod jacks into, comfy couches and ridiculously huge projection TV for the early losers. Already near perfect, his apartment has now become poker nirvana. He built a poker table. By himself. In one weekend. Even better: he blogged it out. It's sick. It sits up to 10, has chip holders built into each player area, green felt for the playing surface, big foam bumpers along the edges to rest your forearms on - it's the real deal. He's even got real casino-style cut cards and is considering getting an automatic shuffler. And the only rake he takes is $2 once a night for the grub. This man is all heart. This beats having a ping-pong or pool table by a good three miles or so, as cool as those more typical toys for a young working professional male are. I'd go so far as to say that it even beats having a gaming console, if you're into being social and having fun with a lot of friends, since there's a practical limit to how many people can play video games at once and there's few things more exclusionary than being the odd man out watching other people have fun. It's like whoa, flashback, elementary school and you're getting picked last for a game again. Sucks. But this, this is as inclusionary as it gets. Everyone gets a seat, a chance at the action, some grub to nibble on and something fun to do for a weeknight. I can't wait to play on it.

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