O-Poker

I am going to a home cash game tonight. Usually, I get excited about a home game when there are fish with money, but tonight there are different reasons. We are playing a very low limit cash game ($50 max buy-in I think), but it should be a little like a time warp to 2003-2005. One of the regulars from our old Wednesday night game is trying to put together a semi-regular game (once a month or so) in his new game room above his garage. A few (maybe 4-5) of the regulars from the Wed game should be there tonight - maybe even a couple that I haven't seen in years.

My original connection with the old regular Wed night game was due to random luck. My wife and I were in the UB Aruba check-in line in 2003. We started talking to the two guys in line directly behind us. They were both from Orlando also. One of them had won the Aruba package online and his friend was lucky enough to come along for the ride. I don't remember how, but we wound up meeting a couple more people that were also from Orlando later in the trip. I doubt there were more than a handful of people there from Orlando and we randomly had met 4 of them. We all exchanged numbers and email addresses when it was time to head back to the real world.

Fast forward to a month or so later - I got a call from one of the guys that we met asking if I was interested in coming to a home game. It started much like most home games - we shoved the dining room table and the kitchen table together and played $20-$40 sngs. There was even a ramp (part of a pizza box) between the tables since they were different heights. The game gradually grew with real tables, dealers, tourney clocks, and of course rake. It was no longer our "home game." It was now called Orlando-UPC. The sngs turned into 2 table sngs and ranged from $80 - $250 on Wed and Sunday. I tried to make it every Wed night and always had a great time.

My visits to the game became few and far between after our son was born in Sept 2005. Loopy (the originator of this blog that has stopped posting) even wrote a trip report in 2005 after our first time back months.

I rarely made it to the game over the next several years and it gradually morphed into something different. It was moved from it's original location to a guy's house near downtown. The games got bigger and there was even a bouncer from one of the downtown night clubs there for security. The original regulars gradually stopped coming to the game as often (for a variety of reasons) and were replaced with new regulars. I remember heading to the game a year or so ago and knew only 3-5 people of the 20 or so that were there.

Orlando-UPC closed it's doors sometime last year shortly after the guy that ran the game got married. They had a pretty good 5 year run.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the old faces tonight. There should be plenty of beer flowing and chips flying.