The Score: Malystryx - 2, C.J. - 2 1/2

And won't Malystryx be a happy camper when he reads that post title. =)

As you know, Malystryx and I are very competitive and we've lately taken that into the arena of games. As you'll recall, Mal beat me at chess and checkers, though both were close calls. I beat him soundly at Risk and, on our first checkers match, caused him to forfeit the game by throwing his checkers to the floor (poor little kamikazes).

By my count, that had us at Malystryx - 2, Me - 1 1/2 (you can't really count a forfeit as a true victory, after all).

Last night, we decided to play poker, Texas Hold 'Em style. My hubby is the expert at Texas Hold 'Em so we enlisted his help to refresh our gaming skills. I've only played once before (and beat my hubby, though we don't speak of it. Ever.) and Mal hadn't played in years.

My hubby played with us for an hour until he called it quits to go to bed (getting up at 3 a.m. for work will do that to you). When he left, he slid his entire pile of chips over to Malystryx.

Usually, that would be grounds for some devastating revenge on my part. After all, he's Mal's friend but he's my hubby.

This time, however, in pity for the tiny stack of chips in front of Mal, I didn't protest. This chip transfer left Mal with about two more stacks than I had. My hubby said good night and went upstairs and our true natures came roaring out.

We finished the entire poker match in one hand.

Mal made a strong opening bet, which I, of course, immediately countered. Going in to the turn card, I already had two pair and Mal was betting like a maniac. Not to be outdone (and because I was pretty sure he was only betting so strongly to try intimidating me into folding - as if.), I matched every bet he made. There is no surer way of goading Mal into foolishness than to meet every challenge he throws out as if it's nothing. When the river card was played, I was sitting at two pair and there was NO WAY I was going to let Mal knock me out of the game on what I was pretty sure was a bluff.

He went all in. I followed. Both of us had a wild recklessness gleaming from our eyes. It was poker to the death, in place of checkers. We showed our hands.

Mal had one pair.

I had two.

I won.

I didn't rub it in. Much.

We agreed that it would be sheer folly for the two of us to ever play poker against each other again without the civilizing buffer of my hubby to keep us in check. My only regret is that we weren't using real money. =)