First memories of poker (1 Viewer)

Played in college right before the official poker boom.

One hand that is burned in my memory (and we were all terrible players) was a board that ended up 4 to a flush, and there ended up being 4 all ins. Someone turns over the Q, someone the K, and someone the A, and the other guy says "damn, I thought you were all bluffing. I only have a pair of 6s." It still gets brought up with him 20 years later whenever we see him.
 
Rounders lead to tiny home game which led to 3/6 limit at the Indian casino which lead to 2003 WSOP blowing everything up. I’ve dipped in and out ever since. Currently back in, lol.
 
I'm dating myself here, but shortly after my grandfather taught me 5 card draw using pennies, I caught some WSOP highlights on Wide World of Sports in 1979 and was intrigued. And of course, given the time period and lack of good commentary, I thought the chip values were "real" and not tournament dollars. That was my first exposure. Picked it up again in college, but that was mostly games like Guts and Night Baseball while drinking cheap beer. Learned hold 'em in 2000-01 and I think that's when I got hooked.

For those of you that may not know what Wide World of Sports was, Google it. What an awesome sports show back in the 70s... Evel, Minnesota Fats, cliff diving, all kinds of wild stuff. YouTube has some cool footage from back in the day.
 
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I saw my dad play kitchen table stud games in the early 80s. Nickel, dime, quarter. I "learned" to play somewhere between ages 6-10.

But the moment it really hit me was watching the first season of the WPT. I was already an entrenched Magic player. So it just fit my mindset.
 
Throwback Thursday , year 2005
Grinding online, two screens with multiple tables back In my college dorm.
Pissed off gf took the photo
942434F3-BABF-42BF-B112-265588834842.jpeg
 
High school in the 80s. My friends were older. We drank beer and fire water and smoked...um...cigarettes. :whistle: :whistling: Played nickel dime quarter. Mostly stud. Played with wild cards. Got into some real sickness with that game "in between" a few times. One of the guys bought a book of poker games and we decided we liked Omaha. I remember going home and running out Omaha hands, so I could figure out hand strengths.
I used to bring a crown royal bag full of change to the games. :LOL: :laugh:
 
High school in the 80s. My friends were older. We drank beer and fire water and smoked...um...cigarettes. :whistle: :whistling: Played nickel dime quarter. Mostly stud. Played with wild cards. Got into some real sickness with that game "in between" a few times. One of the guys bought a book of poker games and we decided we liked Omaha. I remember going home and running out Omaha hands, so I could figure out hand strengths.
I used to bring a crown royal bag full of change to the games. :LOL: :laugh:
*SHUDDERS* In between......
 
My first true memory of playing cards for money, I must’ve been 7-8 years old and playing knock w my grandfather. He kicked my ass and kept my money. Poker 101 the hard way.
 
*SHUDDERS* In between......

is this otherwise known as acey-ducey? i had some disastrous experiences with that and guts in college. i remember one time my dad had to front me a check for $180 to pay off an IOU from a single guts hand - it felt life-altering at the moment, i was sick over it.
 
is this otherwise known as acey-ducey? i had some disastrous experiences with that and guts in college. i remember one time my dad had to front me a check for $180 to pay off an IOU from a single guts hand - it felt life-altering at the moment, i was sick over it.
Never heard it called that and I hate it

https://bicyclecards.com/how-to-play/in-between/

For those not aware of the terrible game. Also 5's will FOOK you
 
Been playing all sorts of card games since I was five or six. Hearts, spades, pinochle, canasta, and poker of course. Dad had a monthly game with my uncle and a bunch of his degenerate buddies where my mom would put out a spread of food and they would play from late afternoon through the night. Most memorable was interrupting play to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon in ‘69. I finally got to play that night with those guys and lost $20 in 20 minutes due to my eagerness to play every hand I’d been waiting five years for that chance. I remember all of them having a good chuckle at my expense. Then played with a bunch of buddies through high school, guy that ran the game’s dad was a state trooper. Been loving card games ever since. Played a ton during my tenure in the Air Force band traveling from gig to gig on the bus.
 
My first memories of poker was around 1998 playing with high school friends, typical games were draw and stud variations: Cincinnati, Chicago, In-Between, Guts, 5 card draw, etc. Then we had one buddy who introduced this dumb game with only 2 cards called "Texas Holdem"...he had seen on it this movie called Rounders. That never really took off with our group as there just wasn't as much action!

Fast forward 4-5 years and I watched Moneymaker win the WSOP so that piqued my interest again along with a few other guys. We would play 3-4 handed typically but sometimes we would get a full table and play $5 tournaments.

After college I found a group of guys that were doing $3 tournaments (I distinctly remember it being $3 for some reason) in their basement and they introduced me to online poker, so I put $50 on paradise poker (maybe a few times) and that was pretty much it, I was hooked! During this time I was pretty much buying or asking for any and every poker book printed. Then I found out our local casino dealt poker so I went up there and checked it out, 9 tables of LIMIT POKER with 2-3 weekly NL Holdem tournaments. Eventually, I quit my IT Support job (went to college for Network Administration) and dealt poker part time...my parents were thrilled!
:rolleyes:
:meh:
. Hourly, dealing poker paid about 2x what I was getting paid for my IT support job, but I just didn't get that many hours....but that just meant more time for poker! :D

I did that for about 1.5 years, during that time I was playing quite bit online (Full Tilt, Stars and a few smaller sites) and qualified for both the 2005 and 2006 Main event. I cashed in the 2006 main event which was awesome! I ended up quitting my dealing job and playing online and home games for about another year while I was "looking" for a job in IT. Eventually it happened and in 2008 I got back into the IT field, bought a house, got married and started popping out kids...so that kind of ended my poker run.

Now, I play a little bit online and home game tournaments every few months. I've also started playing HU with my 11 year old son who loves it. I just ordered a new cash set with .05, so I hope to teach him some real life lessons with his own money. :)
 
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Earliest poker memory is playing penny ante at age 8 with my step-father and a friend of his. I lost my entire $4.00 bank. And then my mom decided to play them and won it back for me, and took some of theirs to boot. Thanks, mom!
 
My parents were playing poker with 32 cards in the 80's with friends every weekend in front of the Dallas series.
My first touch with this drug :D

Edit add Dallas vidéo

 
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