Birthday Tournament

My wife’s family gets together way too often. They have gatherings on anyone’s birthday or anniversary, or minor holiday, or pretty much anything else you can think of. And it’s not just her immediate family; aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone gets together. My family, not so much. Our birthdays meant you got to pick what was for dinner that night, and we would get gifts from our immediate family. The whole thing would last about a half hour. The only time we would celebrate any extended family member’s birthday is when they reach 60+ years, and their age is divisible by five.

Not that there’s anything wrong with her family, they are actually all really nice people and I’d say I lucked out in the in-law department. It’s just that they have gatherings all the time, and it’s a little more family time than I am used to.

So my birthday is this weekend, and I’m obligated to have a party. I’m not a big fan of throwing parties to start with, making it a birthday party is really not something I look forward to. It’s not that I’m self conscious about my age or anything, I just really don’t care. I don’t consider birthdays to be all that significant, at least until you hit 50. If you asked me how old I was, I would probably take me a while to figure it out. It stopped being important once I hit 21. I really don’t see what the big deal is.

But, I’m throwing a party. This year, it’s going to be a poker party. I’m going to attempt to get about twenty people who have no idea how to play poker to play in a tournament. At the very least it should be interesting, and provide me with some amusing blogging fodder.

I have some prizes for the top three finishers, and the person who knocks me out. If anyone has any ideas for gag type prizes for the first person out, and the person who goes out on the bubble let me know (Less than $10 please). I’m kind of stumped.

Of the 15-20 people that will be there, I think only two of us have ever played in a hold em tournament before, me and my wife’s cousin. I know my dad at least knows how to play, but I don’t know if he’s any good. He probably hasn’t played since he was in college. Other than that, my wife is the next most knowledgeable, based solely only on watching Celebrity Poker Showdown. So there’s probably going to be a whole lot of me officiating and explaining which hands are winners and why, and when you should bet and what a blind is, and who knows what else.

My brother also knows how to play but unfortunately, he’ll be in Texas on spring break. I was especially hoping to have him play, because the more people that know what they are doing the better and more importantly I wanted to put a bounty on his head. He gave us a set of Purdue wine glasses as a gag wedding gift (he goes to stinky Purdue, I went to Illinois), and they’ve been taking up space ever since. My wife wants to regift them. I thought they’d make a nice prize, but alas he won’t be participating. There’s always next year, as long as this goes well.

Anyway, everyone seems excited about so hopefully it will be a good time. Maybe I can get them all hooked and we can start having regular games. Now that’s an event worth gathering the family for.

If I have time, I’ll do a write up before the blogger tourney on Sunday. If not, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll get knocked out of the blogger tourney early, and I can write it up then.