Pokeno

DuskyDawn asked what pokeno is, so here's the explanation of the game. Each month someone in the group holds the game at their house and they get to pick a theme for what type of gift everyone should bring. Our gifts are limited to $15 and the themes really vary. This month it was something Halloween or fall. But themes in the past have been the bathroom, dollar store items, summer, chocolate and gift cards just to name a few. We also each bring $5 which is put towards the two money rounds. Each person also brings a food dish, be it an appetizer type thing or a dessert.

We each get a game card which has pictures of 25 playing cards (ie: kings, jacks, nines, etc) and all the game cards have a different assortment of playing cards on it so no two are the same. The person whose house we're playing at gets to start. They shuffle a deck of cards and begin turning them over and calling out what the card is; and then each player, if they have that card, marks it on their game card with a chip, just like in bingo. You need to get 5 in a row to win or get all four corners. Once someone wins and calls "pokeno", they get to choose a gift and they open it in front of everyone else so we know what the gift is (we just use gift bags to make things easier). If more than one person wins at the same time, they have to draw cards to see who gets to pick a gift as only one person is allowed to choose a gift in this round. The deck is then passed on to the next person and we continue playing that way until everyone's had a chance to call the cards, at which point all the gifts are won.

The next round is the first of the money rounds. Instead of getting 5 in a row or the corners, you have to make an X on the card, going from each of the corners in to the middle. The first to fill in an X wins half the cash in the pot. If more than one person wins they can opt to split the cash or draw cards to see who gets all of it.

The next round is the stealing round. We play another round where you need to get 5 in a row or the four corners and anyone that wins and calls "pokeno" gets to steal one of the gifts from whoever won them in the first round. If more than one person calls pokeno in this round, they draw cards to see who gets to steal a gift first and each winner gets to steal a gift. We do this again until everyone's had a chance to call the cards.

Then there is the final money round. This time you need to completely fill in your card, all 25 spaces. Again, if more than one person wins they can split the money or draw to see who gets it all.

Then finally there is the booby prize round. The person whose house we're at buys an extra gift for this round. The only people that can play are those that have no gift at the end of all the other rounds. Could be that they didn't win at all, or they did win, but their gift was taken in the stealing round.

It's very easy and we usually chit chat along the way. I'm not sure how many people play in this group, but it's typically the same people every month. I'm just a fill-in person for when others can't make it and they'll be short players. It was offered to have me be a regular player every month since they kicked one woman out of the group cuz she was too bitchy, but I don't live near any of these people and can't have the game at my house so I opted just to have them give me a call if they needed an extra player.

I know it probably sounds really boring, but it's a way for mom's to get away from their husbands and/or kids for a night to get shitfaced drunk, stuff our faces, socialize and possibly win prizes. We usually have a lot of laughs, particularly when someone gets drunk and starts reading the cards off wrong. I just feel out of place when they start discussing school and the things all their kids do together cuz like I said before, they all have kids at the same elementary school. Plus they're all the epitome of what I think a suburban mom is, and I'm not like that at all.

Since this took too long to type, I'll talk about my computer explosion and other topics tomorrow. My pillow is calling me.