“It’s Actually Not About Poker At All”

because it isn’t.

It’s about connecting, socialising & keeping in touch & that’s easier when there’s some kind of game involved for which poker is actually ideal.

The poker is just something around which we can coalesce, a bit of fun but certainly secondary to the social side of it.

The Idea – Lemonade

A few weeks ago, I wrote this article: When Life Gives You Lemons which was basically a reflection on our current (Covid) situation and how to try and make the best of it – by making some metaphorical lemonade.

Shortly after that I decided that I wanted to use this crisis to stay in touch with and reconnect with all my friends and ideally with something fun and social, to replace the things we can’t do (table tennis and golf in my case).

So I made a list of all my friends, old and new including lots I had lost touch with and proceeded to invite them all to a private online poker game. I wasn’t sure if that was possible (i.e. a private game with just friends involved and no strangers) but having had the idea I looked it up and yes, it is. Perfect.

As I knew this was a social thing for reconnecting etc, I set it up deliberately tailored for beginners, with a free test game, some instruction via a brief intro video & some crib sheets such as tips, faqs and hand orders for the game.

The cost also deliberately tiny (£1) to have something to play for whilst making it accessible to all.

So I then proceeded to send out an email ‘Your invite to the coolest social event in the lockdown era…’ to everyone on that list.

Reconnecting With Friends

It really isn’t about poker.

The poker is a *lot* of fun. It’s fun because everyone involved is a friend and it’s really cool to see and interact with friends in a different context. I am now literally catching up with old friends every week on a Saturday evening.

If I had just said ‘let’s all meet up for a mass online chat’ it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well or would have petered out. Instead we are bluffing, teasing each other and catching up at the same time.

What was also great to see was two friends I used to work with who had not been in touch with each other for over 20 years. They were just poking fun at each other like it was yesterday & now they see each other every week.

In the last game I found out about a friends band and hopefully I will go and see them play when all of the lockdown nonsense is over. In fact this was a friend that I hadn’t been in touch with for over 20 years so I wouldn’t have even been in touch with him let alone gong to see him rocking out like a legend on stage somewhere. Great band name too.

Reconnecting Anyway

The real bonus here is that even when people don’t want to join, for whatever reason, then I am reconnecting with them anyway. I am having some great catch-ups with some long lost friends through inviting them to this thing. As well as that, making it my mission to get in touch with ALL my friends, I have tracked down friends whose contact details I thought I’d lost for good and am back in touch with people I thought I’d lost.

Obviously it is easier to keep in touch if people join as it then becomes a regular contact (with others too as in most cases we either have mutual acquaintances or I will invite people to invite their friends along if they want to), but as the point was to reconnect with people I’ll take any conversation and in these scary times am always glad to hear back from any friends and get their news.

Final Thought

So it really isn’t about the poker, it’s about reconnecting and I am reconnecting with an awful lot of people at the moment as are lots of my friends too. The idea of using an online game is a good one because the game becomes a focal point around which everything else revolves – the game is like the campfire.

It doesn’t have to be poker but perhaps you can think of a similar catalyst which you can use via which to reconnect with friends (an online quiz, scrabble, a different card game), I’d highly recommend it.

Choose a game or activity that can accommodate lots of people then go and invite all the friends you can think of, especially those you have lost touch with. Don’t give up when you can’t find people, look harder. You will be happy that you did.