Even though I’m lying here, sick as a dog, living off of Robotussin and cough drops, this subject has bothered me long enough that I had to sit up and write about it.
I’m always amazed at people’s reluctance to try new things. This is primarily a reaction to my experience with games and poker. I’ve been playing board games for most of my life in some form, and I’ve always been interested in playing something new. I’ll give damned near any game you put in front of me a try, if for no other reason than to understand why I don’t want to play it.
I’ve met a ton of people over the years who are stuck in some kind of rut when it comes to board games. They’ve found the one or few that they like, and fuck all the rest. Even if something new comes out that’s right up their alley, they blanch at the whole idea of putting the effort out to learn something new, especially if they feel as though they’ve “solved” the game they’re familiar with.
This is especially true with poker. After Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker in 2003, the world saw an explosion in poker interest, centered primarily around No-Limit Hold ‘Em, the game that’s played in the WSOP Main Event. Everyone and their brother, sister, cousin, neighbor, mistress, gigolo, mild acquaintance, and most-hated-enemy learned how to play Hold ‘Em. In the years that followed, the combination of home games and online poker kept spurring this interest in Hold ‘Em and everyone just kept playing, whether they were good at the game or not.
What about other poker games? Poker, in it’s current form, has been around for a couple hundred years, but No Limit Hold ‘Em was only invented in the early ’50’s. 5-Card Draw, 7-Card Stud, and their variants predate Hold ‘Em by a long shot. Since Hold ‘Em’s introduction, variants on the community-card theme – Omaha, Tahoe, Pineapple and the like – have exploded as well. There are a ton of poker variants, and most of them are pretty damned fun. Just look at the WSOP schedule this year: there are 8 or 10 different games being spread, and even more if you count betting variations like Limit, Pot-Limit, and No Limit.
But I’ll be bug-fuckered if I can figure out a way to get home-game players to play anything but No Limit Hold ‘Em.
I was introduced to poker in 2004 via Hold ‘Em, just like most people. I played in a home game that ran for several years, and when it fell apart I started running my own home game, which has been running with varying degrees of success for a number of years now. Even though I started on Hold ‘Em, the whole concept of poker is what drew me in, and my appetite to learn the other games has never really been quenched. I’m absolutely fascinated by the fact that someone designed a deck of 52 cards that a) hasn’t appreciably changed since it’s initial creation and b) has spawned countless variants not only of poker, but of a ton of other games that can be played with that very same deck.
Apparently, many do not share that same level of enthusiasm. There is a small, core band of players in my poker group that will play whatever game is put in front of us. Getting anyone outside that group to play anything but Hold ‘Em is like herding cats. All the other poker games seem to hold this stigma that they’re for “more experienced” players, or people just aren’t willing to learn them because they’re afraid to move away from the game they already know. This cenophobia just baffles me.
The most common excuse I hear is “I’ll just lose my money.”
Wait… Didn’t you do the exact same thing to learn Hold ‘Em in the first place? At some point, every one of the millions of Hold ‘Em players out there were newbs, myself included, and we were just lighting our money on fire by playing it at all. This is especially funny coming from the people who routinely lose even playing Hold ‘Em. Clearly you’re not in this thing for the money, so why should spending a few bucks on a new game bother you? And yet, not one of these people who’re afraid of Omaha or Stud or Lowball has been able to sufficiently explain to me how learning one of these new games would be any different from the experience they had learning Hold ‘Em.
I mean, I really love Hold ‘Em, but with as much enjoyment as I get out of it, it can get a little tiresome after a while. Break out of your shell! Do something new! Don’t be a chicken-shit! Play a new game every once in a while.
