Bar poker
Someone is trying to get me to go play free bar poker tonight. I hate playing free bar poker. Every time I’ve ever played free bar poker it’s been a free for all of thin-skulled donks tossing their crud into the ring every other hand to see who wins the donk trophy and gets to go on and play at “the final table.” Some of the real champs of any local bar and grill come out of the woodwork for free poker night. Sometimes you can win a propane BBQ set. Sometimes you can win beer money. I’ve found people who love to play bar poker are mostly completely obsessed with “the final table.”
“Dude, looks like you got chip stacked up good enough to float on to THE FINAL TABLE.”
“Man, last week I made THE FINAL TABLE. I felt like the boss and I really thought I was gonna win that BBQ grill.”
“Hell, we only gotta lose 20 more players till I’m at THE FINAL TABLE.”
At the same time, though, playing with no real care of risk and reward can be kind of fun. You can toss off and make weird plays you normally wouldn’t have to see how it works. Only problem is, you usually need a hand in these games, because people call you down.
It’s kind of weird to watch housewives who don’t even know what they’re doing accidentally knock out the guy who plays there every week when she stumbles into a straight with 10-3 offsuit, and the guy pitches a fit. That’s entertainment.
I think I may have to sign up tonight.
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9 opinions for Bar poker
Geoff Young
Oct 10, 2007 at 11:51 am
As long as no-one yells “Yahtzee” in the middle of a hand, I think you should be okay. ;-)
Stabler
Oct 10, 2007 at 5:30 pm
speaking of…. im starting a free poker night at the Albert next thursday. and of course still doing Vortex every monday thru wednesday.
you know it’s kind of fun. if you drink.
Blake
Oct 10, 2007 at 8:54 pm
i’ll try and come out stabler. where is the albert?
Jason
Dec 21, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Bar poker was really big here in Minnesota for awhile, but recently it’s serious died off as the good players have started playing for real money online or at the casinos while the remaining donks haven’t been enough for the bars to make any profit on the whole thing.
Jason
May 12, 2008 at 10:37 am
Nearly six months later, and bar poker is very much on the downswing here. The novelty was strong when it was first legalized here in 2006, but lately the donkitude of the whole thing has pushed the better players online and the worst players are honestly getting bored with it. At least the phenomenon created a bunch of new players in Minnesota who have gone on to bigger and better things in poker.
Jason
Jun 17, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I had an interesting revelation today on this subject: Most of the remaining bars in MN that have bar poker do pay out small cash prizes per night…about $25-$75 for the winner and possibly smaller prizes for 2nd and 3rd if you’re fortunate. When you have 30-90 players, that’s a brutal pay scale, but then again it’s free to play.
To most people around here, those aren’t the cash amounts that are worth playing seriously for. I know of some people for whom winning those amounts mean the world to them, and those are the ones who complain the most are the ones who really can use the money.
To the rest of us, it’s just a bar game and we take or leave it in terms of prizes. That’s the short of it.
Blake
Jun 17, 2008 at 2:35 pm
People getting upset at bar poker is pretty funny. I wish there were places around here that gave cash instead of bar tab. That’s pretty nice.
Jason
Jun 17, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Sad thing is I actually used to get very mad at these events. Then I woke up and smelled the coffee one day and realized that 95% of my opponents in these games could care less if they won or not and 60% of those really have no idea what they’re doing. Going up against those kinds of players makes a consistent winning track record all but impossible…but at the same time even if you develop one nobody’s going to give a rip.
A couple of bar leagues in Minnesota do offer season long prizes and we’ve had quite a few of them reach the WSOP that way. One of them even cashed for six digits a few years ago. Several others have smashed the Heartland Poker Tour…most of these players have come from a bar league owned by Brook Lyter, a WPT runnerup himself.
jereme
Jun 17, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I have never seen bar poker on the west coast. Maybe i’m not going to the right bars?
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