Doing, Not Watching

Last Friday night, I was fortunate enough to put together the first of what I'm hoping will be a long series of poker nights in the Man Space. We had seven men good and true, played for moderate stakes, and everyone seemed to have a good time; the game lasted four hours. I hadn't played for over a decade, since before the Poker Boom, and we split the night up with the dealer calling the hand, rather than getting into nonstop hold'em and hardcore machismo. (I imposed a buy-in and maximum bet limit, so that no one got really hurt or crazed.)

While writing the next day, I flicked on one of the dozen-odd late-night poker shows in the background to see if I'd catch any pointers... and I can't, for the life of me, see the reason why anyone watches these things. It's not like golf, where I can really admire people who are clearly better than me -- I'm sure all of these players are better than me, but determining that from watching a few drawn-out hands is impossible.

It was more this: why would you watch someone doing a fun thing, rather than go do the fun thing yourself? If I'm in the mood to learn about poker and play a few hands, you go grab a computer and get to it. Watching other people, that you do not know, play cards is right up there with watching people knit.

(Final point: if you're local to NJ, not an ass, and want to waste some time, send an email to dmt shooter at gmail dot com. There might be a chair or two free from time to time.)