Big Week for Mariana

We had the last of the Poker Events for 2012 last night in the condo party room. There were 17 players.  In the past we have had a handful of women play. Last night only the H-Girls could make it, with a couple of late scratches. Mariana a popular winner and serious poker player took home first place, beating her most fierce rival, Charlie Brown. It was a sweet victory. Mariana is a regular on-line and casino player. She did not hide her pleasure at winning and in particular beating CB.  Brown took 3rd place.

The most entertaining player, again, was the unpredictable Jimmy. He swept my preliminary table, before his frequent "I'm all-in" strategy confounded the final table. It was effective, as no one had a clue if Jimmy was bluffing. He just wanted to go for a smoke. He almost quit several times. The restless Jimmy doesn't like to sit for too long. His co-worker and long time friend, Mariana, finally put him out of his misery.

To add to the hyper competitive Mariana's big week, she took home first place in the Walking Contest. I am known as an avid walker. People frequently comment "Oh, that D'Arcy is a walker of note!'. I walk to and from work and an hour each night. They say you should walk at least 10,000 steps a day. That is aprox. 5-miles. Very few people actually do walk 10,000 steps. I was bragging to the H-Girls, as I frequently do, that I was probably the best walker that they knew. They scoffed at the very notion. A contest was born.

First prize would be a small engraved trophy purchased by the losers, the right to be called Champion for the remainder of 2012 and a chocolate cake. I lent Donut Girl, Ana, one of my i-Pod nanos, equipped with very accurate pedometers. All 3 of us would have the same recording device. After a couple of false starts, due to H-Girl's technical difficulties, the contest began 2-weeks ago. The photo of my pedometer results, I dropped the i-Pod while viewing shattering the glass, showed 101,000 steps at the end of the week. That by the way is over 50-miles. Mariana sent a photo of her total, an astounding 121,000 steps, or over 60 miles.

Donut Girl's nano broke down on Friday of the contest, which ended Midnight Saturday. She claimed the contest was no longer valid. I saw her total late Thursday night, she had 62,000 steps. At that time I had 71,000. I completed an additional 30,000 steps over the last 2-days and still lost to Mariana by 20,000 steps. Ana claims she easily walked 60,000 steps over the last two days. As the Commissioner of the contest, I ruled she finished in 3rd place. Mariana was only interested in the trophy, so Ana was awarded the 3rd place cake as a consolation. It was all we could do to stop her complaining.