Shut Up and Deal

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LAST LAUGH

We use fifty-two cards, but none of us really plays with a full deck.

I speak, of course, of the Saturday afternoon low-stakes poker game I look forward to with feverish anticipation. After all, I can't belong to the Garden Club on account of my lack of a green thumb. And I can't zip down to the local karaoke bar and do the hokey-pokey and sing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" because, there isn't any local karaoke bar.

So I play poker.

I live in CreekSide Village, although it would be more accurate to call it CreakySide Village. It is one of those 55-and-over communities that punctuate the landscape from California to Florida by way of Arizona. CreekSide is south of Temelec, another 55-and-over enclave, and west of Chantarelle. I scarcely dare mention Seven Flags and Country Meadows. We're surrounded.

In the poker game, then, we are all 55 and over. Mostly way over, and a little to one side.

Usually eight of us play, six geezers and two geezettes. On occasion we're more than eight and we have to decide how to split up into two tables. This results in arguments of unbelievable stridency and volume, and it delays the game for, I've timed it, as much as 21 minutes.

Damn! I could win $2.21 in those 21 minutes if I hit a lucky streak.

We play 25¢ limit. The initial bet is usually a nickel, and that's the minimum. Losing $10 in one session is a disaster.

Players are then forced to lie to their spouses when they go home.

"How'd you make out, hon?"

"Oh, I dropped a buck or so. I forget."

Only in a very loose sense do our games resemble poker. If the seasoned Las Vegas pros were exposed to our poker games, they would be inclined to take up crocheting.

I'm going to explain a few of the games. Now listen carefully. You wouldn't want me to repeat this.

Five-Six-Seven. The roots of Five-Six-Seven lie deep in Seven-Card Stud. The faceup cards are the key. If you get a five, faceup, that's a wild card. If you get a six, you get an extra card. And if you get a seven, you're eliminated. Out the door.

Five-Six-Seven is not a good game to play if you have a short fuse, and most of us in CreekSide have what might be called geriatric short fuses. Not long ago, after five cards had been dealt, Van had four nines. A dynamite hand, of course, and he was betting it like crazy, 25¢ a crack. His sixth card, the last faceup card, was a seven. Van stood up and uttered a mighty oath, and I thought he was going to run and jump into our swimming pool. It took several of us to calm him down. And it delayed the game.

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