Poker at Eric's

Last night we played poker at Eric's. We shall never be returning to his Tel Aviv pad, though. Which is a shame, mostly because of the opportunities to peek at the people showering in the neighboring building. Anyway, present were Eric, Yossi, Jonah (in body, if not in mind), Raf, Nik, and Nik's brother, Greg.

We ate big bits of chicken and chips. Nik ate lovely homemade veggie burgers. They really were a treat. There was plenty of nosh and drinks, though the Schweppes sparkeling fruit drink smells of vomit.

Jonah was the evening's big loser. He lost all his stake remarkable quickly, was persuaded to buy in some more, lost that too, bought in some more, and lost that too. All in all, he was a massive 123 shekels down, dropping two places in the overall leader board. He mumbled something about not being focused before scarpering off home early. Eric was the night's big winner - that's two weeks in a row. However, he's still over 200 shekels down since records have been kept. Nik picked up over 80 shekels too, playing some quite sublime poker on the way. Well done Nik.

The evening was quite quiet and we played lots and lots of hands. There was an efficient, workman's-like atmosphere. Lots of money went back and forth between the players (though in Jonah's case it was almost exclusively "forth").

Rafi broke his plastic fork on his chicken. He always does that.

Poker at Gary's

On Monday evening we all played poker at Gary's. Two different meals were on offer: a meaty option, and a veggie option, which was eaten by no small number of Poker Kings. You might think this was because certain Kings have seen the light and joined Nik in his ideological vegetarianism. But no, it was actually because it's nearly 9th Av. Oh well.
The most amusing events of the evening took place in the very first hand. Adrian and Gary bet each other loads of money. Gary proudly displayed what he thought was a full house. It took Nik (of all people) to point out to him that he is only allowed to use two cards from his hand. Gary had done the full house f*ck up. Meanwhile, Adrian thought he had a low (or something) but he didn't. So Gary took all the money (for having a pair or three of a kind). Once the cards had been cleared and the chips gathered up by Gary, Adrian realised that he had had a club flush. Meaning he would have taken the money after all. How we laughed.
At first, it was quite hard to pick the cards up off the table, so we took the unconventional, but quite necessary step of replacing one of the packs of cards with another.
Other notable occurrences were Eric not losing money and Adrian finishing the evening extremely down, and actually in 3rd place overall. Maybe we can now put this Gary/Adrian nonsense to bed. The real competition is between Gary and Yossi... Gary was the big winner.
Rafi left half way through the game.
We're not playing next week because of aforementioned 9th Av.

Poker at Nik's

Last night, Gary, Adrian, Rafi and Jonah came to Nik's to play poker. The food was a bit disappointing. Nik forgot to do onions. Etty had bought less tasty sausages than usual. And the chips were a bit soggy. However, there were leftover drinks and green Doritos, so it can't all have been bad. Notably, Eric halted his downward spiral and showed his solidarity with the poor folk of Sderot at the same time. Perhaps God does reward the worthy after all.

Rafi was the big winner. Nik was the big loser. Adrian moaned about not feeling very well. We played lots and lots of poker. The music was soporific so we listened to the Stones and Lauryn Hill instead of latin jazz.

Today's bonus chart shows the much-hyped rivalry between Adrian and Gary (homoerotic tension, anybody?). It shows how much more money Adrian has than Gary. Adrian definitely has the upper hand.

Poker at Jona ('s parents-in laws')

Last night we all played poker at Jona’s in-laws’ residence in Raanana, just off Achuza. Jona made some very tasty chips and wings. No one mentioned anything, but it’s probably worth noting that the ketchup was not made by Heinz. No green Doritos, but very spicy ones instead. I don’t recall a single complaint about the food, drink, or snacks, actually, so well done Jona.
We played quite a lot poker, way overstepping our midnight bedtime. Yossi made lots of money. Eric and Jonah lost lots of money. No change at the top or bottom of the overall winnings/losses chart. Nik got four of a kind twice, but gave it away the second time by utterly failing to control his quite understandable excitement.
It is quite possible that Adrian gave Eric some manual relief under the table.
I’ve made another graph. This one shows the difference in winnings and losses between the people who are top and bottom of the graph at any one time. The graph will make unpleasant viewing for Eric.