Nov. 03, 2005

The games people play

Sometimes studying gets put on hold. Sometimes weekends just start early. Sometimes it takes hours. But playing games on campus is always a good time with friends.

By Jessie Schmac
Schmacj@marietta.edu

It’s a Wednesday night with no exams scheduled for the rest of the week. The weekend has come early for the usual four Euchre players in their third floor Parsons Hall suite.
Each sits diagonal from their partner; one guy in slippers, another in a white hat, another with torn pajama pants, and the last with a dip of Copenhagen tucked in his lip.The tension in the room is high.

Across the hall two guys are playing Mario Kart. One yells at the other. “Why the hell did they give you three red shells when you’re in first!?”
Not an uncommon gripe about the video game gods.

The four Euchre boys mock the two across the hall for getting too involved and too serious about Mario Kart. Three more tricks put the Copenhagen boy and the white hat boy in the barn. One more point and they win. But a Euchre will give the other team the two points needed to win.
The white hat boy is the dealer. He turns the jack of diamonds over on the kitty.Everyone shakes their head smirking. “It never fails, you cheater.”
Not an uncommon gripe when he is the dealer.

Pass. Pass. Pass. Inevitably he picks it up. Diamonds are trump. The boy with the torn pajama pants leads with an Ace of clubs. His team wins the first trick. They lose the next four.
The other team got their point; their winning point. The boy in the white hat cheers waiting for his partner to spit his tobacco before he jeers. The losing team demands best out of three. It begins again.

In one suite Euchre and Mario Kart dominate night after night. The players put off papers, studying, even showering just to squeeze in one more game. Just to go for the win. Just for the bragging rights.

In other places around campus, students are caught up in games of blackjack, Texas Hold ‘Em and even beer pong. Some have their own cups, their own cards, some even their own chips. Others bring food, beer, or money. But they all bring their own tells. In many card games, especially poker games ‘tells’ raise the call and luck puts its cards down and folds.

A girl in a blue sweatshirt never looks at her cards again if she has a good hand. With a bad one, she checks it once, twice, four more times before making a decision. Another player, a boy with a mustache shows he has a good hand when he plays with the whiskers of his mustache. The other two are beginners, still learning the game.

Losing all his chips one of the beginners, in a Marietta College hoodie, asks to play one more game. The girl in the blue sweatshirt, though the winner, sighs. “One more game and then I have to finish up homework,” she submits.
Her sigh is another one of her tells. She wants to play again but she can’t show the same eagerness as a beginner.

During the week, these card games and video games give students another option for procrastination. Another hour to put off studying for a Calc exam or beginning an English paper.
On a daily basis they give students a chance to escape academic stresses, a chance to laugh with friends, and sometimes a chance to win money or prizes from CUB events. But always, it’s another chance for bragging rights.