Five-card movers The poker run already a Maine tradition BY SAM PFEIFLE

I admit it: I’ve got casino on the brain. But I’m no gambler. I once spent 15 minutes in Foxwoods and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Though publications like ESPN the Magazine claim that you’re hardly a sports fan if you don’t lay a little on the over/under, I’ve never placed a bet with a bookie and I never even make a friendly wager on the Sox/Yankees series with my buddy from Vermont who never saw a winner he didn’t root for.

For some reason, I don’t seem to have a problem getting worked up over the Sox/Yankees series. Of course, the prognosticators are right: It’s hard to be interested in the Sunday Night Baseball game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks. They say putting some money on it makes it interesting. You know what I do? I don’t watch it.

Still, I’ve got casino on the brain. You know what no one ever talks about when they argue over the casino? The games. Blackjack, Poker, Let It Ride, Craps, Baccarat — those are all fun games. People play them all the time, for pennies, pretzels, chips, and, sure, for money.

At the casino, if you’re at a five-dollar table, you could lose 10 straight times and lose $50 in about a half hour (not that you’d lose 10 straight times at blackjack). If, in that same half hour, you hosed down two free drinks, is that really so bad a loss if you had fun doing it? You can ponder that on your own.

But it doesn’t have to be for money. Got five people around a table? Not many games are easier to get started than a few hands of blackjack. And you’ve heard of strip poker right?

How much do people like playing poker? Well, have you heard of a poker run? It’s genius. You buy a hand (or more than one), with the money usually going to charity. Then you take your vehicle of choice (car, snowmobile, boat, plane) to five predetermined points and pick up five cards, each concealed in an envelope. You head back to the starting point, gather up with everyone else, and the person with the best hand wins the grand prize (sometimes it’s part of the pot, sometimes it’s a trip or something).

Take the MS Regatta Harborfest’s Cruise for a Cure, happening August 17. A poker run on Casco Bay, $100 gets you into the short course, $300 gets you into the long course. Basically, you parade through Casco Bay to where four different boats are tied up. Each one gives you a card in an envelope. Then you get a fifth card back at a barbecue. The three boat crews with the best poker hands win "valuable prizes." In the event of a tie, skippers cut for it. The money goes toward curing Multiple Sclerosis.

The short course goes around Chebeague and comes back past Great Diamond; the long course, for "cigarette boats" and the like, goes all the way to Boothbay for a card. That’s quite a trip for long odds. But it sure sounds like a fun day on the water. For more info, check their site at http://www.msmaine.org/msregatta_poker.shtml.

That sort of pales in scale, though, to what’s planned for the 30th International Seaplane Fly-in, happening September 4 through 7 up on Moosehead Lake. The Friday/Saturday event (it takes two days!) will be "a poker run to several destinations around the lake and to local airports." No word on what the ante is, but "you will need an airplane to join in."

But who has boats and planes? More likely, you’ve got an ATV sitting out back that the kids mostly use to wheel around the house and make a racket. Never fear, your local ATV club probably has a poker run scheduled for your area. For instance, the Knowles Corner Wheelers have one scheduled for September 6. Check www.atvmaine.org/events.htm for details.

One such ATV fest held by the Southern Maine ATV Club on July 12 attracted 166 riders, raised more than $8000 for the American Cancer Society and will be featured in the January edition of ATV Magazine.

Even the coppers get involved. The Blue Knights, the organization made up of law-enforcement motorcycle riders, gets into the act this week, too, with an August 9 poker run in Arundel.

See how popular poker is? People will contrive any means to play it. The best example? I once heard tell of an employer who thought of using poker to get his employees to show up everyday at the factory. See, when you punched in (on time) you’d get a playing card. Five days of the week, five cards. At the end of the week, everyone with a full hand (those who hadn’t once called in "sick" — not that they’d call in) would vie for a $100 bonus. Great plan, huh? Yeah, too bad the factory got sold to a Canadian company and was shut down before they could implement the plan.

Now, back to that casino . . .

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com