Way back when, probably over 25 years ago, I got my first exposure to the game of poker. My Dad taught me how to play poker when I was just a little kid and we used to sit for hours together playing around the kitchen table. I was hooked right from the get-go. During our 5–6 yearly trips to Las Vegas (we lived in LA, so it was a quick weekend getaway), I got my Dad to save me a few chips from his sessions at the many poker rooms he played at. This proved the start of my poker chip collection. Though I was obviously underage, I’d been bitten hard by the poker bug and had a natural affinity for anything and everything connected to the game. Any time my Dad hosted his regular home game (it rotated among the participants) I was sure to find a reason to hand around the table for a bit. Everything about poker was fascinating to me.
Me (in the middle), my Dad, my brother, and my grandparents – poker around the kitchen table
Video Poker as a Kid
Needless to say, at under 10 years old it’s not as though I could start getting poker games together amongst my friends. I did, however, find a way to scratch my nascent poker itch: through video poker. During one of our Las Vegas trips, my parents bought me one of those little electronic video poker games. I was as connected to that thing as people are these days to their Smartphones.
I used to go to a day camp over the summers. Most kids brought their Game Boys (remember those?) with them to pass the time over the bus rides. I brought my little video poker game. I remember how excited I used to get on the rare occasion I would hit four-of-a-kind. When it happened, I remember deciding not to play any additional hands on the machine so that I could show my parents how happy I was once I returned home.
My little electronic video poker machine – horrible paytable, lol
Video Poker as an Adult
As you can imagine, I eagerly anticipated my 21st birthday so that I could “finally” start playing some poker for real. Before giving “real” poker a shot though, I wanted to see what it would be like to play some video poker in a casino. While I was obviously intimately familiar with the game of poker by then, I was somewhat unprepared for the plethora of options available to me at the casino’s video poker machine (this was at the Mirage, in Las Vegas, by the way).
See, I just thought I’d step up and start playing, hoping of course to hit the royal flush for the highest payout. It turns out that I had only had experience playing one type of video poker: Jacks of Better. There was also Deuces Wild Poker, Joker Poker, Double Double Bonus Poker and a few other varieties I can’t remember the names of anymore. I immediately fell in love with the Deuces Wild version of the game, as it was one of the games Dad had taught me way back when around the kitchen table.
I can’t believe I still have this little game after all these years!
Of course, I lost my $20 in nickels (yup; remember when the machines actually spat out coins instead of tickets?) pretty quickly. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the thrill.
At 33 years old now, I’ve obviously come a LONG way since the incidents I’ve described above. I know a heck of a lot more about poker and video poker than I did as a “casino newbie” when I was 21. I’ve been employed full-time in the online gambling industry since 2010 and I’ve been blogging about poker here at Cardplayer Lifestyle since 2009. Dare I say I’ve even become somewhat of an authority. But no matter how high I climb in poker, I’ll never forget my “poker roots” and all those hours I used to spend playing video poker on that little electronic machine. I was inspired to write this article after finding that little machine while doing some Passover cleaning… I can’t believe I still have it! You can be sure that I’ll be thinking of this article next time I step up to play some more video poker in a casino.
Getting Into Video Poker
If online gambling is legal in your jurisdiction, starting to play is as easy as signing up to a legal operator and firing up a video poker game. Of course, so long as you’re of legal age, you can also head out to your local land-based casino and give a few hands of video poker a try. If you end up getting into it and loving the game, as I did, perhaps someday you’ll eventually make your way towards the poker tables where you play against real opponents instead of a computer program or the casino.
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