Aside from poker, what are some other games people in your poker circle like to play? Do they play for cash or kudos? What else do they gamble on?

My poker circle growing up was my family. We play cribbage more than anything, and horseshoes from time to time. Parcheesi also had its heyday. For money, all of it (very low stakes).

In my more recent poker circle, a lot of the guys like to gamble on sports and pretty much anything that seems like an interesting bet. One even wagered on the outcome of the Grammys or something during a game one night. At least one guy enjoys backgammon aside from myself, but I don't know about too many other games.

There is an all consuming appetite for all things football with my high stakes crowd. I find it astonishing how utterly ignorant they are about most of real life but how vast their knowledge of football minutia is. {Though ignorance abounds there is no shortage of opinion. Few will bet with me regarding their misguided opinions about factual matters any more though . . . } My crew is older and well educated - I'd say the average guy has a BS or BA with plenty of masters and doctorates. There are nights the game slows to a crawl as they watch the game(s) on TV and discuss football stuff.

Thank goodness they don't put the time into playing better poker that they put into studying football. I think the lawyers spend more time on football than they do practicing law.

On a different track: I find zero percent overlap between my bridge games and my poker games. No one in the bridge group admits to playing poker any more out of a sample size of ~60 players, 25 of which are men. None of the poker crew admits to playing bridge {sample size ~50, 42 men, 8 women}, I am not sure any of them know how. I find synergy in the two games but I am all alone in playing both.

DrStrange

PS for what it is worth I think it is far harder to become good at poker than it is to become good at bridge, but far easier to learn to play poker.

Some of our players are also golfers. There is always some money involved when they play they say.

Before poker took over my card playing , I played Euchre and Hearts , but have not done that in years.

+1 to Euchre. I know it's kind of a regional game, but it is a good one. Before poker, that was what my crew played exclusively.

We've also gotten into cornhole/ bag toss, whatever you call it. A couple guys have gotten personalized boards that are pretty cool, and it's a good summer/fall drinking game.

I've been involved with a few different groups of poker players over the years.

The poker groups tend to run in the same Fantasy Football leagues, and even some fantasy golf, nascar and baseball. There are golfers, although I don't think they play for cash.

We went through a big Open Face Chinese phase, it's dwindling. I brought cribbage in a few months ago. A few guys enjoy it before we get a 4th, or after we are down to 2 or 3.

Side question: How do you define high-stakes home poker?

High stakes is our 1-2 game - but before snickering, consider that a normal session sees six to eight thousand in play and a record night has over thirteen thousand. Still, its not like a $10-$20 game.

A low stakes game is a 1-1 game with maybe three thousand in play or a $0.25/$0.50 game with maybe a thousand in play.

There isn't a lot of overlap in the player base.

DrStrange

Do you play cribbage for money or fun?

I've always been curious about how other people play it for money. My family typically does $2 per game and $5 for the last game in a session (you have to call "last game" before it starts). A skunk doubles the stakes, a double skunk quadruples the stakes, and the elusive triple skunk would octuple the stakes.

I also manage a double-elimination tournament once a year. Buy-in is $10, and it usually pays first through third out of 10–16 players.

I hear you. A 1-2 game can play bigger than the casino equivalent with no rake and lots of action building up stacks. I'm just also interested in the next level up, so I always ask about others' experiences.

We play for a value per point, as well as the game. Nickel a point, buck a game adds 'interest' to game, without hurting anyone too bad.

Skunk doubles, although in the past some agreements have just doubled the buck on the game, as the points are obviously already huge.

Double skunk is 2x the skunk.

Never even considered a triple. 121 before 31? Crazy, but I guess it could happen in the right circumstance.

We play Magic the Gathering - which is actually how our regular game got started - we have a loose mtg playgroup of ~20 of us and about 8-10 play poker. A lot of us will occasionally jam Dominion or other random games and a small subset plays D&D.