New Beginnings

Last night, we played a low-stakes mixed game/dealer’s choice with a bunch of friends. I honestly don’t know any other type of poker than No Limit Hold ‘Em (NLHE). I was introduced to games like Omaha High, crazy pineapple and deuce to seven. Our setup was: we play one round/orbit of the game of choice of the dealer. When the button goes back to him, he’d be a dealer of a black jack game (just a crazy twist we tried to do). Then the player on his left gets to be the dealer and call a poker game of his choice. Admittedly, donkey and stupid plays were seen all through the night. Well, what do you expect when I hardly know what I was doing?

Every game cracks my head. It’s a different strategy and mechanics for each game. I know I haven’t really mastered NLHE, but it wouldn’t hurt (I think…) to learn the other types of poker. I mean, right now, almost everybody claims to be a poker player. We were blessed enough to discover the game in an early stage in the country and got to know people, groups and personalities who helped us play the game the way it should be played.

Our group, JGPT, started with games similar to our session last night. We hardly know the rules of NLHE, so we made our own. We don’t have a designated denomination of chips, so each chip is equals to 1 unit, regardless of the color. We know nothing about reading the board, position play, calculating odds and other important factors in playing poker. Hahaha!

But we were spoiled kids trying to play the game and we do have the gear for it. Jards already have a set of nice clay poker chips from the US. We have been using it since day one. He also had a table-top made. He ordered books and videos of poker, all these we can use just to improve our game! (He’s such a sweetheart!) We spent hours of at least twice a week playing non-stop poker,

Then after sometime, we got the hang of it somehow. I guess we played too much with the same people that it seems like we’ve got each other read like a book. We know the routine when he’s going to check or when he hit his draw.

Then, one by one, we got to know other groups and people who share the same interest… POKER! Yeah, that was the time that our poker friends would see us more often than our family.

In a short span of time, the local poker community developed. Our group, JGPT, grew with raging hormones. No, we are not a group of experts and sharks on the felt. We are a group of people who loves to play poker and party at the same time. We are a newbie-friendly poker group which is more of a soiree than mean ass poker.

Expect fishes, bad beats, donkey plays and all the things that will make you insane. But let me tell you this, give it time. These so-called “JG fishes” will graduate and conquer a better field. Just take a look at the founding members… Jardine, Che, Gail, Miguel, Carol, Kath, Bryan and your truly (shameless plug!). Joel and Barok are not as visible like the rest of us. But it was quickly followed by a surprising number of people who joined JGPT or at least graced our home games. To date, I can say that there are a lot of players from JG who will be a (if not, already one) dangerous opponent on the felt.

Now, poker is everywhere, or at least NLHE. I hope that what our group did last night is just a mark of another beginning and growth of our group.


P. S.
We apologize if we can not invite every member of the group. Please understand that we don’t even know the other games yet, what more, to organize one.
We’ll keep you posted for further announcements, hopefully soon…