I miss my dawgs

Just like Lil Wayne, I miss my dawgs.

I mean, I really miss my home game. The camaraderie, the laughs, the heartache and headaches -- I miss it all.

A home game is like going to war against your best friends, loving them and hating them all at the same time. You ruthlessly attack your mates when you're in the hand, but feel the utmost sympathy as you watch others bad beat them. The perennial loser takes quite a bit of good-natured ribbing, and the guy raking in the chips hand after hand only shrugs as the others wonder if he's a genius or just lucky. Losing a ten-dollar buy-in (not even enough to see a movie out here in SoCal) feels like the end of the world, and ending the night thirty dollars richer makes you feel like a god.

I consider home games to be the purest form of poker. Actually, let me qualify that -- I think home games can be the purest form of poker. My statement assumes that the game follows the generally accepted rules of poker (which many home games may not), and that the stakes are such that losses are neither inconsequential nor devastating. To clarify that second bit, I think that the buy-in and blinds should be high enough such that players actually care if they lose, but not so high that losing puts a guy in a financial bind and drains the fun out of the session. Finding this balance is tricky, and will vary from game to game depending on the income levels of the players involved.

But I digress. I think that home games are more pure than all other forms because I think they come the closest to capturing the spirit of the game. Online poker and casino play are nice in their way, but each comes with another layer of complexity that gets away from what poker is all about. Cardrooms (online as well as brick-and-mortar casinos) have inconveniences such as waiting lists, higher rake, obnoxious patrons, distance (in the case of casinos), and tipping the dealer (also casinos only). Of course, home games also lack some of the niceties of cardrooms, such as bonuses and comps, food service, variety of games and levels, and number of players.

I guess what I like about home games is that most of the distractions are stripped away (the good along with the bad) and it becomes all about poker. Just the cards, the chips, and the people. You have to decide on a game, blind level, etc. -- but after all that, you can just sit down and play. If you have a regular home game, you're playing with people that you respect and trust. And while everyone involved is trying their best to win, the main goal of playing in a home game is to have fun. That's what I miss the most. Obviously I'm not going to be able to make a living playing in my home game. But I miss playing poker and not having it feel like work.

I'll never have what I had back in college, when a poker game was played amongst my roommates and I literally everyday. Sadly, my friends have all moved on to do different things with their lives, and the blissful days of my poker infancy are long gone. I may try to get another home game going in the future, but as poker peaks in the United States, I fear this will become more and more difficult. But who knows -- maybe I'll get lucky and the guys will get together again for one last hurrah. I'm still a young guy, and even though my friends are scattered from Fremont to Thailand, I think my love for the game is here to stay.