Unusual Home Game Traditions/Practices (1 Viewer)

jbutler

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I was emailing with some folks this afternoon and was remembering something we used to do in my old game when I was down in Atlanta and thought some folks might have some similar - or likely not so similar - traditions in their home games.

Could be long-running prop bets or a way of settling disputes as below, but I would think there would be some entertaining stories.

Mine:

When I was a kid I spent a lot of the summer time at my grandparents' place which was then in the country (Grandfather still lives there, but now it's basically in the middle of the suburbs thanks to sprawl). When I would fight with my cousins, my grandfather made us put on boxing gloves and go at it until someone tapped out.

I brought this back in my game in Atlanta. I first mentioned it as sort of a joke, but once the practice was established, when guys would start sniping at each other at the table, we'd egg them on and eventually one would break and challenge the other to a boxing match.

The twists: (1) I only had one pair of gloves; and (2) both my front and back yards were on about a 30 degree slope. The solutions: if they were differently-handed, each took the glove of their dominant hand; if same-handed, they flipped for who got which glove. The guy who got the glove for his dominant hand had to start out below the other on the sloped back yard. If they were same handed, they started out parallel on the slope.

There was a lot of drinking in these games, so usually it was over pretty quickly when one of them landed a good one and the other tumbled downhill into the fence. But there were probably 4 or 5 instances where it went on for quite a while. Only 1 ever developed into a serious fight that had to be broken up.
 
There's not a lot of story to this, but let me set the scene..

When I first started playing poker in high school (~2000), we renovated an old tool shed owned by a friend's family. They lived in undefinable nowhere, half in a forest. We found a capable amplifier, then reclaimed speakers from various places & wired them all into one massive sound system. It is impossible to describe the volume this system was capable of. It was a small shed, well insulated (by us), with 15+ individual speakers and two 12" subwoofers. How it didn't explode, start on fire, or otherwise fail is beyond even my current knowledge of electrical engineering. It may have been the will of the heavens, I don't know.

Anyway, the group eventually became fond of a song which came to be called "The Poker Song" for unknown reasons. The tradition was to play it almost as loud as was tolerable & everybody at the table boisterously singing along. A crew of 10+ awkward high school boy-men, half of which had no musical talent whatsoever, all full-voice singing:

 
There's not a lot of story to this, but let me set the scene..

When I first started playing poker in high school (~2000), we renovated an old tool shed owned by a friend's family. They lived in undefinable nowhere, half in a forest. We found a capable amplifier, then reclaimed speakers from various places & wired them all into one massive sound system. It is impossible to describe the volume this system was capable of. It was a small shed, well insulated (by us), with 15+ individual speakers and two 12" subwoofers. How it didn't explode, start on fire, or otherwise fail is beyond even my current knowledge of electrical engineering. It may have been the will of the heavens, I don't know.

Anyway, the group eventually became fond of a song which came to be called "The Poker Song" for unknown reasons. The tradition was to play it almost as loud as was tolerable & everybody at the table boisterously singing along. A crew of 10+ awkward high school boy-men, half of which had no musical talent whatsoever, all full-voice singing:


I'm at work and too scared to play this song since I have no headphones. Will have to wait til I get home.
 
I'm at work and too scared to play this song since I have no headphones. Will have to wait til I get home.

what's really strange is that when i played this yesterday it would have been the second time in the past week anyone listening would have heard this coming from my office. don't know that i'll go for a third.
 
There's not a lot of story to this, but let me set the scene..

When I first started playing poker in high school (~2000), we renovated an old tool shed owned by a friend's family. They lived in undefinable nowhere, half in a forest. We found a capable amplifier, then reclaimed speakers from various places & wired them all into one massive sound system. It is impossible to describe the volume this system was capable of. It was a small shed, well insulated (by us), with 15+ individual speakers and two 12" subwoofers. How it didn't explode, start on fire, or otherwise fail is beyond even my current knowledge of electrical engineering. It may have been the will of the heavens, I don't know.

Anyway, the group eventually became fond of a song which came to be called "The Poker Song" for unknown reasons. The tradition was to play it almost as loud as was tolerable & everybody at the table boisterously singing along. A crew of 10+ awkward high school boy-men, half of which had no musical talent whatsoever, all full-voice singing:

You win the interwebz today.
 
The bar was set so high in the op that any weird thing we might do is not worth mentioning. Great story though!

i was also thinking semi-normal things. for instance, @Leonard mentioned once that every week his players compete to tell the most offensive joke.

i wouldn't try that with any of my currents group as there are too many semi-closeted racists, so the jokes would probably be told in maliciously, but i love the idea if you're among non-evil people.
 
Every now and then the player UTG will put out a blind bet of 2x the BB before he looks at his cards. When action comes back to him he actually has the option of raising AGAIN over his blind raise.

Yeah, things get pretty crazy at my games.
 
There's not a lot of story to this, but let me set the scene..

When I first started playing poker in high school (~2000), we renovated an old tool shed owned by a friend's family. They lived in undefinable nowhere, half in a forest. We found a capable amplifier, then reclaimed speakers from various places & wired them all into one massive sound system. It is impossible to describe the volume this system was capable of. It was a small shed, well insulated (by us), with 15+ individual speakers and two 12" subwoofers. How it didn't explode, start on fire, or otherwise fail is beyond even my current knowledge of electrical engineering. It may have been the will of the heavens, I don't know.

Anyway, the group eventually became fond of a song which came to be called "The Poker Song" for unknown reasons. The tradition was to play it almost as loud as was tolerable & everybody at the table boisterously singing along. A crew of 10+ awkward high school boy-men, half of which had no musical talent whatsoever, all full-voice singing:


As a former member of a barbershop quartet (20 years ago in high school), I cannot endorse this song highly enough. Outstanding. I wish I had heard it in high school so I could have pitched it to our director for our final concert as seniors.
 
@DrStrange , if you bring the one-handed boxing to your game, you NEED to film Crazy when the inevitable happens.

Nah, Doc has described Crazy several times as a sweet and gentle soul. Alpha Male vs. Crafty LAG grudge match, next week on pay-per-view. :)

As far as odd practices at home games - tipping the dealer in a self-dealt $.25/.50 game. This can lead to all sorts of hilarity when someone gets "stiffed," as well. :eek:
 
Nah, Doc has described Crazy several times as a sweet and gentle soul. Alpha Male vs. Crafty LAG grudge match, next week on pay-per-view. :)

As far as odd practices at home games - tipping the dealer in a self-dealt $.25/.50 game. This can lead to all sorts of hilarity when someone gets "stiffed," as well. :eek:

Sometimes when our fishier players who won't drop more than one buy in bust they'll stick aroundand deal for fun and collect tips along the way. Once they get a few bucks they'll start dealing themselves in and shove any decent hand trying to pick up a little sidepot to get back in. Fun stuff.
 
Not a tradition, but as far as unusual game goes...

On 10/10/10 we had an insane game. My friend Tricky (lol Tricky) hired 3 girls to deal topless (2 tables). Only 2 girls came in because the 3rd was from the town we were playing in and was afraid she'd know people in the house lol. Nobody in the house was from the town and all of us were in our 40's (or late 30's). Anyways, the 2 girls come in and start dealing fully clothed, then they were like "now?". Of course. They started dealing topless but within 30 minutes they were fully unclothed, laying on the felt with legs way up getting dealt the board on their ass, their stomach, etc. Even bets were being placed on naughty areas. It went from 0-60 really fast. When they switched tables they did things I'll leave to your imagination while passing each other.

Couple of funny moments about this game:

Two of the wives were next door and were aware that we had topless dealers, but had no idea what would eventually happen. One of them came over before the girls showed up to play cards and she was playing directly to my right. She happened to be my best friends wife. I was the best man, my wife was the maid of honor in her wedding kinda tight. She was supposed to leave when the girls showed up but in her drunken state was like "nah I'm gonna stay". She never left and had the face of complete horrification and wouldn't talk. Her husband was at the other table. She got so depressed that I was like "Lisa, you need to leave, go next door with your friends" but she wouldn't leave. Her husband has his back to us at the 2nd table so he was like "not my problem" but it absolutely ruined my good time. I felt like I was having sex while my parents were watching. She was soo horrified and all the guys didn't let up on the dirty talk so I was feeling super guilty about her witnessing this stuff but I'm like "you need to GTFO". Edit: I failed to add that the marriage was crumbling and sex was a major bad topic for them. Because I knew this, I knew what she was thinking and it made it more depressing. They have since divorced.


The other funny point is that the pimp or security guy or whatever guy who came with the girls was like "wow you guys are playing cards? Let me in". He trash talked so hard before he got his first hand. Within 30 minutes he had dumped 300 and had to exit the game. The girls were supposed to stay for 3 hours, but stayed for 8 because of the good tips. The entire time the guy is like "you girls ready to go, lets go, ready to go?". The girls were like hellz no this is the best gig we've had all month. While the guys were verbally dirty, they were respectfully dirty if that makes any sense. I felt bad for the 3rd girl who sat in a car for 8 hours for nothing.

5 years later and people are still talking. "We need to get a ten ten ten game going soon". The next morning my wife goes "were there strippers at Scotts game last night?" I'm like "how the F do you know?". Apparently my friend who hosted the game a couple towns over got a call from his wife in NYC who found out somehow. 6 levels later all the wives knew by brunch the next day lol. My wife doesn't even know his wife but everyone got a little doghouse treatment the following day. It was worth it.
 
Last edited:
Not a tradition, but as far as unusual game goes...

On 10/10/10 we had an insane game. My friend Tricky (lol Tricky) hired 3 girls to deal topless (2 tables). Only 2 girls came in because the 3rd was from the town we were playing in and was afraid she'd know people in the house lol. Nobody in the house was from the town and all of us were in our 40's. Anyways, the 2 girls come in and start dealing fully clothed, then they were like "now?". Of course. They started dealing topless but within 30 minutes they were fully unclothed, laying on the felt with legs way up getting dealt the board on their ass, their stomach, etc. Even bets were being placed on naughty areas. It went from 0-60 really fast. When they switched tables they did things I'll leave to your imagination while passing each other.

Couple of funny moments about this game:

Two of the wives were next door and were aware that we had topless dealers, but had no idea what would eventually happen. One of them came over before the girls showed up to play cards and she was playing directly to my right. She happened to be my best friends wife. I was the best man, my wife was the maid of honor in her wedding kinda tight. She was supposed to leave when the girls showed up but in her drunken state was like "nah I'm gonna stay". She never left and had the face of complete horrification and wouldn't talk. Her husband was at the other table. She got so depressed that I was like "Lisa, you need to leave, go next door with your friends" but she wouldn't leave. Her husband has his back to us at the 2nd table so he was like "not my problem" but it absolutely ruined my good time. I felt like I was having sex while my parents were watching. She was soo horrified and all the guys didn't let up on the dirty talk so I was feeling super guilty about her witnessing this stuff but I'm like "you need to GTFO".


The other funny point is that the pimp or security guy or whatever guy who came with the girls was like "wow you guys are playing cards? Let me in". He trash talked so hard before he got his first hand. Within 30 minutes he had dumped 300 and had to exit the game. The girls were supposed to stay for 3 hours, but stayed for 8 because of the good tips. The entire time the guy is like "you girls ready to go, lets go, ready to go?". The girls were like hellz no this is the best gig we've had all month. While the guys were verbally dirty, they were respectfully dirty if that makes any sense. I felt bad for the 3rd girl who sat in a car for 8 hours for nothing.

5 years later and people are still talking. "We need to get a ten ten ten game going soon". The next morning my wife goes "were there strippers at Scotts game last night?" I'm like "how the F do you know?". Apparently my friend who hosted the game a couple towns over got a call from his wife in NYC who found out somehow. 6 levels later all the wives knew by brunch the next day lol. My wife doesn't even know his wife yet everyone got a little doghouse treatment the following day. It was worth it.

I want to play at your game.
 
If only I could live for another 985 years to make it to the 01/01/01 game. Guess that's why they say those things only happen once in a lifetime. That was a fantastic story and I will have to share it with the guys tonight at our monthly game. Epic story!
 
I want to play at your game.

Not sure why you want to play a game that will end up with you losing all your money to Guinness (I've read this story about a plaque attack and another hint at someone wanting to stab him for how he plays) and then having your wife leave you?
 
Why wasn't Guiness' post made in the official home games pics thread?

This makes me sad.

Mike
 
i was also thinking semi-normal things. for instance, @Leonard mentioned once that every week his players compete to tell the most offensive joke.

i wouldn't try that with any of my currents group as there are too many semi-closeted racists, so the jokes would probably be told in maliciously, but i love the idea if you're among non-evil people.

Just to set the stage for this joke contest, I will say that I have long contended that the funniest jokes are usually about oral sex. In the right setting, it is surprising/shocking without being offensive. Winning jokes at my poker game tended towards pedophilia or necrophilia. I would have to use the disclaimer: "no children were actually harmed in the telling of this joke."
 
I was emailing with some folks this afternoon and was remembering something we used to do in my old game when I was down in Atlanta and thought some folks might have some similar - or likely not so similar - traditions in their home games.

Could be long-running prop bets or a way of settling disputes as below, but I would think there would be some entertaining stories.

Mine:

When I was a kid I spent a lot of the summer time at my grandparents' place which was then in the country (Grandfather still lives there, but now it's basically in the middle of the suburbs thanks to sprawl). When I would fight with my cousins, my grandfather made us put on boxing gloves and go at it until someone tapped out.

I brought this back in my game in Atlanta. I first mentioned it as sort of a joke, but once the practice was established, when guys would start sniping at each other at the table, we'd egg them on and eventually one would break and challenge the other to a boxing match.

The twists: (1) I only had one pair of gloves; and (2) both my front and back yards were on about a 30 degree slope. The solutions: if they were differently-handed, each took the glove of their dominant hand; if same-handed, they flipped for who got which glove. The guy who got the glove for his dominant hand had to start out below the other on the sloped back yard. If they were same handed, they started out parallel on the slope.

There was a lot of drinking in these games, so usually it was over pretty quickly when one of them landed a good one and the other tumbled downhill into the fence. But there were probably 4 or 5 instances where it went on for quite a while. Only 1 ever developed into a serious fight that had to be broken up.

Wow! You need to get some shirts made a bit like Tree's, "Get your ass whooped at The Claremont Lounge." I'll be on my best behavior Jack. I'm a lover, not a fighter.

The only tradition we have is the "chicken pot". We have to go to the camp gate to get food that is delivered. We usually make a dinner order for some broasted chicken from a local place. Noone wants to go get it. So after the order everyone pays for their food by putting chips in the middle for the next hand, the chicken pot. Whoever wins the hands has to go to the gate.
 
Not a tradition, but as far as unusual game goes...

On 10/10/10 we had an insane game. My friend Tricky (lol Tricky) hired 3 girls to deal topless (2 tables). Only 2 girls came in because the 3rd was from the town we were playing in and was afraid she'd know people in the house lol. Nobody in the house was from the town and all of us were in our 40's (or late 30's). Anyways, the 2 girls come in and start dealing fully clothed, then they were like "now?". Of course. They started dealing topless but within 30 minutes they were fully unclothed, laying on the felt with legs way up getting dealt the board on their ass, their stomach, etc. Even bets were being placed on naughty areas. It went from 0-60 really fast. When they switched tables they did things I'll leave to your imagination while passing each other.

Couple of funny moments about this game:

Two of the wives were next door and were aware that we had topless dealers, but had no idea what would eventually happen. One of them came over before the girls showed up to play cards and she was playing directly to my right. She happened to be my best friends wife. I was the best man, my wife was the maid of honor in her wedding kinda tight. She was supposed to leave when the girls showed up but in her drunken state was like "nah I'm gonna stay". She never left and had the face of complete horrification and wouldn't talk. Her husband was at the other table. She got so depressed that I was like "Lisa, you need to leave, go next door with your friends" but she wouldn't leave. Her husband has his back to us at the 2nd table so he was like "not my problem" but it absolutely ruined my good time. I felt like I was having sex while my parents were watching. She was soo horrified and all the guys didn't let up on the dirty talk so I was feeling super guilty about her witnessing this stuff but I'm like "you need to GTFO". Edit: I failed to add that the marriage was crumbling and sex was a major bad topic for them. Because I knew this, I knew what she was thinking and it made it more depressing. They have since divorced.


The other funny point is that the pimp or security guy or whatever guy who came with the girls was like "wow you guys are playing cards? Let me in". He trash talked so hard before he got his first hand. Within 30 minutes he had dumped 300 and had to exit the game. The girls were supposed to stay for 3 hours, but stayed for 8 because of the good tips. The entire time the guy is like "you girls ready to go, lets go, ready to go?". The girls were like hellz no this is the best gig we've had all month. While the guys were verbally dirty, they were respectfully dirty if that makes any sense. I felt bad for the 3rd girl who sat in a car for 8 hours for nothing.

5 years later and people are still talking. "We need to get a ten ten ten game going soon". The next morning my wife goes "were there strippers at Scotts game last night?" I'm like "how the F do you know?". Apparently my friend who hosted the game a couple towns over got a call from his wife in NYC who found out somehow. 6 levels later all the wives knew by brunch the next day lol. My wife doesn't even know his wife but everyone got a little doghouse treatment the following day. It was worth it.

Winner! Are those gals freelancers? Could be a secret VIP game next summer Thursday night....
 

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