Weekly poker tournaments offer free games, fun socializing, and worthwhile prizes
Texas Hold’em was a full house Tuesday night at the UMC Connection.
The event marked the beginning of the spring semester’s weekly poker tournaments, where lessons and games are free.
Dana Kusjanovic, the games area manager at the Connection, said Tuesday nights at the UMC aren’t just fun and games, though.
“It’s fun and social,” Kusjanovic said, “It really helps you learn a lot of skills, both poker skills and life skills.”
Although the games are free, Kusjanovic said they’re the real deal.
“Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s not real poker,” Kusjanovic said.
Poker and College Students . Oil and Water?
Poker and college students? Some say it makes for a bad combination. Steve Bentley, the substance abuse program coordinator at Wardenburg Health Center, said gambling is an unquestionably popular practice among college students, but that this event in its holistic approach won’t be a problem for the majority of students and participants.
Bentley said the rough incidence rate of the general population who will have a lifelong problem with a mood-altering substance is between 10 and 12 percent.
“If you apply the above statistic to a behavioral disorder, like gambling, the active ingredients are much the same. Chips or no chips it doesn’t matter. All addictions at the core are an emotional disorder,” Bentley said.
Kusjanovic said the Tuesday night poker tournament has been thoroughly checked and approved by the UMC, and it doesn’t fit the description of gambling.
David Ferguson, a sophomore aerospace engineering major, has played in 11 of the Connection’s poker tournaments. Ferguson said he started playing poker seriously back in high school.
“As a freshman, students couldn’t eat lunch off campus, so I’d stay in and play poker instead,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson was the 2006 spring semester champion, but victory didn’t always come so easy.
“I got my rear end handed to me a few times,” Ferguson said. “But the sign of a good player is someone who knows they aren’t the best yet.”
Prior to the start of the games, Ferguson was listening to the iPod he won in last year’s tournament. He said the prizes are a definite incentive to keep on playing.
Registration for the games begins at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesdays with games starting at 6:30 p.m. In all there are 64 seats available. If the cards are played right, the winner will win a seat at the championship table to defend his title at the final tournament on April 24.
Grand prizes for the final tournament include an iPod and airplane tickets. But for instant winner’s gratification, Tuesday night winners will pose their best poker face for a picture to hang on the Connection’s “Wall of Fame.”
