Planning a Women’s Poker Night
Say you’ve found friends with two rare qualities – they’re women and they love playing poker! Now it’s time to take a page out of the boy’s manual and set up a women’s poker night. It can be quite difficult to find enough interested ladies to put together a women’s poker circle, but once you have four or five ladies who are serious about sitting down and playing some cards, it’s time to start planning your event.
First of all, if you’re planning a serious game, you’ll need a serious table. While your kitchen table or a folding table can work, it’s not an ideal solution for the long-term. A nice felt-covered table made specifically for playing cards on is – of course – your best bet. And although these tables can be quite expensive new, it’s not that hard to take a nice table from a garage sale and covert it into a poker table. Sometimes, all it takes is creating a smooth felt top, while other times you may need to be a little more skilled – you might need to add longer legs or redo the top. If you’re really good with tools, simply build your own poker table.
Next, you’ll need to think about cards and chips. It’s always a good idea to have several decks on-hand and to replace older decks as the cards get worn. If you’re going for the look and feel of a professional table, you’ll want cards with nondescript backs. If you’re just playing for fun, then any deck will work. As for chips, just be sure you have enough of them. Most chip sets you buy come with a good number of each color, but if you’re playing with chips you’ve had for some time, some may have gotten lost.
Do a quick assessment of the room you’ll be playing in. Can everyone get up from the table without needing to squeeze behind someone else? Is there plenty of room between seats so that no one can peak at another’s hand? Is there good lighting? Are your chairs comfortable? You’ll be sitting in them for a few hours or more, so you’ll definitely want to invest in some padded seats.
And while it might seem not that important, be sure you put some thought into planning your snacks and drinks. You don’t want food that’s going to be hard to eat one-handed. Likewise, messy foods like nachos can ruin your nice poker table – and you certainly don’t want that after all the effort you’ve put into building the table! Be sure to have coasters for all drinks and napkins for anything that could potentially get on the cards or chips.
Finally, do some family planning before your women’s poker night. You don’t want to be interrupted by the kids or your spouse, so find things to entertain them. Even better, get them out of the house for the evening. Ensuring that every member of your family has some outside activity to keep them occupied is a good preventative way to keep interruptions to a minimum.