Full House: Ducks Over Aces

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON: College campuses and poker are the perfect combination. They go together like milk and cookies, like fireworks and the Fourth of July, like pocket aces and reraises. These days it's unlikely to find a college campus without a slew of students cramming around dorm room tables pushing stacks of chips back and forth every single night. In fact, I bet half of the people reading this column right now are sitting anxiously in a dorm room waiting for two more people to show up so they can start playing already.

I don't blame them. College campuses are the ideal places to play poker on a regular basis. First, there are always more than enough people to fill a table. Second, the games take place three steps from your bed or at most 30 steps down the hall. Third, you have all the time in the world to play because exams come around only once every few months. Fourth, if you're stuck in your dorm over winter break with no one around, you have a wireless connection to Bodog.com from your bed, your desk, the bathroom, and anywhere else on campus. Being in college is the same as living inside of a Harrah's poker room. In fact, it's actually better. When's the last time you paid a rake playing at a dorm?

Hold on a minute. Before everyone decides to pull a Van Wilder and take four more years of Action Films in the 21st Century, remember that it's not all splashed pots and Phil Hellmuth impressions in college. Every once in a while that RA, you know, the one who thinks you're in a gang because you wear sunglasses indoors, busts up your game just as your pocket rockets get reraised. Or the fire alarm clears the table just as your 9-9 hand sees an A-9-4 rainbow flop. By the time the game restarts in another room or after everyone realizes it's only a drill, your run of cards dies out, your chip stack begins to shrink, and you go on tilt. That is when you begin to realize dorm room poker isn't flawless and decide to take your show on the road. Luckily, you won't have to go far off campus to find another game in most college towns.

In Eugene, Oregon, home to the University of Oregon Ducks, students have plenty of options when it comes to off-campus poker rooms. Let's begin the tour at the Tsunami Club where tournaments are a nightly event during the week before the venue turns into a nightclub on the weekends. The tournaments here have small buy-ins of only $25 with plenty of rebuys and add-ons. Once the Tsunami Club starts blasting music on the weekends, the poker crowd heads over to Brew-N-Cue for a big Friday night tournament with a $100 buy-in. The Brew-N-Cue also offers smaller buy-in tournaments, usually around $30, later in the weekend on Saturdays and Sundays. Due to its off-campus location, the Brew-N-Cue gives students a chance to sharpen their skills against some older competition.

For those students who find the 15-minute drive up Oregon State Route 99 to the Brew-N-Cue a little long, there are plenty of places to play closer to the dorms. Just across the river is The Cooler, which attracts plenty of students for its Monday and Tuesday night tournaments. Buy-ins here range from $25 on Tuesday nights to $50 on Monday nights. And for the truly lazy few who won't cross the river for a game, there is Taylor's Bar right across from the main bookstore. Every Sunday night, plenty of Ducks fans flock (pun intended) here for the $35 buy-in tournament.

There are so many places to play around the University of Oregon that some students might lose track of all their poker friends. To make sure this doesn't happen, the Eugene Poker Club tries to bring the entire poker community, students and nonstudents, together at least once a month for a large tournament. In addition to organizing the tournaments, the club keeps a leader board of winners on its website, EugenePoker.net. This way, winners take home a prize and bragging rights all over campus.

With all of these choices, there's no reason why a noisy fire alarm or a nosy RA should keep the cards from being dealt at the University of Oregon.