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Article
Anyone for a Friendly Poker Game?
Although poker suffers from a spotted history of duels, quarrels, and
gunfights from America’s old West culture, the addictive card game offers
fun and excitement to many today. Countless film scenes or book settings include
the image of several guys seated around a table with a bowl of chips and mugs
of beer, cigars clenched between their teeth, each nurturing a hand of five
cards from others’ view. There is even a widely publicized poster of several
dogs dressed as humans, proverbial cigars and all, snookered at a table with
their holdings in hand.
The game of poker is firmly entrenched in popular culture, no doubt here to
stay. What makes this classic activity so alluring for so many?
Perhaps it’s the male bonding ritual that often occurs in those men-only
sessions otherwise known as the guys’ night out. As the masculine equivalent
of the women’s bridge club, poker night offer an escape from crying babies
and nagging wives that draw men of all ages to their neighbors’ homes
for a game that can last to all hours of the night. Many wives wait patiently
at home for this primal event to be over, but some create feminine diversions,
like the well-known cosmetics parties, where they try on and perhaps order a
favorite brand of makeup or eye shadow. Returning home, the lovely wife embraces
her enriched husband as both retire to a night of celebratory romance.
Poker replaces older traditions of hunting and fishing for many men, becoming
the new sport of choice in the middle-class suburbs. Playing cards now substitute
for guns, fishing lines, and knives that served as a source of recreation and
family sustenance in the past. Is it any wonder that the word “poker”
more often conjures the idea of a royal flush than that of a fireplace in the
minds of those that hear it?
