Poker...the new football?

So I'm playing in my weekly poker game on Monday night at Badger Poker, and we've got our same usual five at our starting table with a few familiar faces filling in the other three seats. Generally having a good time, especially since the premium hands kept coming and kept hitting and improving. Always a great combo! But, as luck tends to do, it turned fast for me, and I lost 90% of my stack on a hand that I had pocket queens that I raised with, to have another guy push back all in for most of my chips. I call, see his pocket threes, and feel great right up until the first card on the flop is a three. Sigh...damn two outers. Anyways, I'm in the blind in the next hand and someone turns a full house, so there goes the rest of the chips.

So what does this have to do with the title? Well, I was the second to last of my friends to be eliminated. Scott was still in, and Heather was watching him play, so I went over and we became his mini cheering section as we tried to peek over his shoulder to see his cards and get the WSOP pocket cam feel for the game. Now I know that I enjoy poker a lot. I jumped on the bandwagon a few years ago with half of the country, and I'm loving the ride so far. But I realized as I sat there for two hours, just watching other people play, and having a blast, that this is so like football for me. I've always said that if it's football I'll watch it, I don't care if it's Pro or Pop Warner (c'mon, kids running around in oversided pads and helmets is cute and funny!). I'm realizing that poker is the same way. If I'm playing it, watching it on TV, watching friends play, whatever, it's just fun. It also helped that in the space of about a half hour I saw Scott flop top set and turn quads to take out a guy who semibluffed with an open ended straight draw, a different guy turn a royal flush, and a third guy flop a straight flush (with someone else flopping and ace high flush!). I was just as excited and having just as much fun watching as playing.

Makes you wonder what future possibilities hold for Daniel Negreanu's Full Contact Poker... 8-)