I played poker this weekend with my family. This is not a game I played as a child. Back then, the only card game I knew was War, which doesn't require any skill at all. Poker, on the other hand, is all about figuring the odds.
Below this paragraph you can see the well-worn deck of cards we used to play poker over the weekend. The deck is at least fifteen years old.
My card mates were my daughter, granddaughter, and husband. He was the only one of the four who knew what he was doing. He was our guide, and as our guide he helped to create a bridge between a twenty-year-old young woman and two septuagenarians. Before my husband's instruction, my granddaughter didn't know very much about poker.
The game we played was No-Limit Hold-em. We played for money, but it was communal money. My husband keeps a cup of coins and these coins he distributed among the players. If one player's pile grew smaller, another player would shove coins across the table to even out the field. In this way, we had a concrete sense of winning and losing, but nobody ever actually lost anything.
Here is a picture of our community bank. This cup of coins also doubles as a family resource for parking tokens, when needed :)
When my granddaughter was very young, we--my husband and I--had a hand in her upbringing. My daughter's ex-husband moved away so we, her grandparents, became 'the other half'.
What a great time we had with that child. We split it. He was the outside man. Parks and beach were his specialty. If there was an event at school to which fathers were invited, my husband showed up. In the picture below my granddaughter is seven. There was an activity day in class for fathers. You can see my husband filling that role.
I was the inside grandma. Building villages on the floor, reading and writing stories, practicing word games were my specialty.
When it came time for my granddaughter to learn to read, I wrote little 'books' for her. These featured her as the main character. The 'books' were actually display manuals that could be manipulated. I copied her photo and inserted these copies in the plastic holders. I used mostly words she had mastered, and in each book would add a few new ones. In this way I hoped to build her vocabulary.
When my husband took her to the park, he would chase her around. She'd meet other children there and tell them her grandfather would chase them. He did.
There was the year--I think it was when she was in the eighth grade--when we picked her up from school every day and took her to the library to do her homework. Her mother was having a challenging year. Several jobs and no time at all left over. So we took up the slack.
All of that, all the love and attention, all the time spent, is in the past. My granddaughter is a lovely young lady now. Outside of the love we have for each other, there isn't much common ground. My husband and I are not great conversationalists. How to make a connection? How to socialize without boring my granddaughter to tears?
Poker!
It seems this is a game her friends play and she doesn't understand what to do. My husband once again finds himself in the role of teacher and guide. He slides into that role gracefully and my granddaughter responds with love and interest.
If my husband didn't love all of us so much he would surely find this house game tedious. He has played poker all his life. He played for years at casinos in Las Vegas. These days he plays at a weekly game with friends. He knows his stuff. And he also understands how to share what he knows.
The game we play is No-Limit Hold'em. This can be a punishing game, if the play is for real stakes. A lot of money is usually on the table.
My daughter and granddaughter share the house with us. We live upstairs and they live downstairs. However, for the last three years my granddaughter has been attending college in Virginia, which is about a seven hour drive from home. Consequently, we only see her during breaks. Even then, there are some breaks when she may be traveling elsewhere.
When we do see my granddaughter it's a treat. But what do we have to talk about? Not that much.
Now we have poker. Even though we are all playing for a common pot, still each of us wants to win. Sort of. I notice the competitive impulse, which is strong in my daughter, is muted during these games.
For those who don't know the game, the rules for No-limit are fairly simple. Each person is dealt two cards, which are secret. Then the dealer (in my home, always my husband) lays three cards, face up, on the table. That's the 'flop'. Everybody looks at the cards they are secretly holding and at the 'flop'. At this stage in the game each player has a pretty good idea of winning odds.
Below is a great hand to be dealt. However, it's still possible to lose with this hand, depending on the flop and what other people are holding. Poker is, after all, gambling. However, in poker, the outcome isn't entirely up to chance. There is much calculation involved.
If there is nothing in the 'flop' that helps to make a good hand (ex: a pair, a flush, a straight) combined with the two cards held, then it's probably a good idea for the player to 'fold'. Cut losses and wait for the next hand.
The two cards at the top of this blog do not offer very good prospects. It takes money to stay in play, so with these two cards a savvy player would probably wait hold onto cash and wait for better hands.
My granddaughter was learning all of this as we played. The game held her attention. She wasn't just being polite. In a way, through that poker game, we were able to turn the clock back, all the way back to when she was a child and my husband was her guide. There was a perfect balance of love, respect and genuine interest.
My granddaughter returned to college two mornings ago. We miss her, but she'll be back in November for Thanksgiving. By then she'll have turned 21, and my husband will have celebrated another birthday. During her Thanksgiving break she'll visit friends and relax. I'm pretty certain she won't have to draw on politeness to spend time with her grandparents. All we have to do is pull out the coins, the old deck of cards and play poker.
Thank you for reading my blog.
Peace and health to all.
All images are mine, taken with my cell phone camera.