One of the reasons I love poker

I love the game of poker. I find it mentally challenging and can be a blast to play. One thing that has struck me in years of playing poker, poker players can be very generous people. Could be our moments of complete disregard for the value of money. It might also be we are always searching for good karma. What ever the reason, good things can come from poker games.

Last month, we hosted a little home game action in our basement. We gather together to play a little Texas Hold 'em tournament. 21 people showed up for the holiday fun. I know some of you don't really know how poker works, so I won't go into great detail, but this month, we did something different.

We offered everyone the chance to get an extra 500 chips in addition to the 3500 they were already getting, if they brought to items suitable for donation to a local food shelf. All but one couple brought the items. The couple that didn't...the hubby forgot to mention that part to the Mrs. She wasn't please.

The idea for this came from my oldest daughter. Every year, here school does a food drive pitting each class against the others to gather the most food. Each year, parents of kids from every class get home from work and wonder what happened to that jar of spaghetti sauce they thought was in the cupboard.

The week following the home game, it was brutally cold here. Folks, I grew up here in Minnesota. 80 hours below zero is cold. Since I work a Monday - Friday job and have no access to parking, I can't bring the food to the food shelf. The job fell to the OhCountess. We also agreed that we wanted our girls to be apart of the delivery. There was no way my wife was taking the kids any where that week of the deep freeze and the following week didn't improve that situation, she started clinicals for grad school. Ugh.

Here it is! Today the girls got all that food to the Channel One Food bank. Thanks to everyone that came that night! Our home game collected 38 items to give to those in need. I'm sure someone else's home game can do better. Your home game or club have what it takes?