Tango Poker

A Poker Room of One's Own

Because of our fondness of poker, we have decided to create our own poker den. We do not have much money so we needed to be resourceful and creative in making our first poker sanctuary.

We decided that the first thing to do is to acquire playing cards. We know that playing cards are available in many shops around us, but we thought it would be better if we could get them for free; because as I have already stated, we are low on the budget department.

How did we get playing cards for free? We asked around from our other friends if they have in their homes playing cards which they no longer use. Luckily, there are some who do. It seemed that their parents do not approve playing poker at home so when people give them playing cards, they just keep them in the drawers. This was good for us because it meant we will have playing cards for free.

I myself have a collection of playing cards. They came from the wake of my father who died last year. All in all, I have in my possession five decks of playing cards. So, I donated two of them to our group.

Many others have donated their cards, but we learn later that some of these cards are not durable. Because of this, we decided to play poker with the cards which pass our standards. Some cards slide a lot which makes it hard for the dealer and the players to use them.

The next thing we acquired is the poker chips. We know that this time we have to spend some money because we do not know any person who owns poker chips and is not using them. So, we chipped in and one of us went to the store to buy a decent set of poker chips that came in a box. I learned earlier that there is a set cheaper than that but is contained in a plastic bag. I think I will buy that cheaper version, after all we have wooden container for the chips. The wooden container formerly contained ginseng, and we got it from our Chinese friend.

Lastly, we thought of the poker table and the dealer button. For the poker table, we decided to purchase felt paper, which resembles the top of poker tables found in casinos. We have a square table in the place we usually meet, so all we had to do is cover it with felt. For the dealer button, we improvised with a jar cover. A friend got the cover from an empty mayonnaise jar, then wrote a huge capital D on top of it. This functions as our dealer button.