What you might not know about the Tiltboys...

So as the first new Tiltboy in almost a decade, I came into the group with a perspective which (by definition) was different than any of the earlier members. After our recent Cabo trip, I decided to reflect upon the things that I have learned about the Tiltboys that weren’t immediately obvious to me when I read through this site after meeting Phil and Rafe a bit over two years ago. As I write this, I realize that each of these could probably warrant a whole blog. However, for now, you are only going to get a paragraph or so of my thoughts. What should you know about the Tiltboys in 2008 that you might not otherwise?

• Still going strong! The first and most obvious thing that some people won’t realize if they have only read the book or looked at the site is the fact that the Tiltboys are still going strong. There are still regular home games (although they have moved from Wed to Thursday night) and we’ve added in semi-regular Tiltboy trips. Eight of us (plus two other friends) just spent an amazing weekend in Cabo San Lucas. What do the Tiltboys do when they go to Cabo? Did we go into town and party at Cabo Wabo? Go whale watching? Nah. We spent 72 hours in the rental house playing various forms of poker, roshambo and anything else we could think of to try to take each other’s money and throw people into a perpetual state of Tilt. Hint: if you have never played the party game “Assassin” with the Tiltboys (and for $$$), then you don’t know how the game is meant to be played. One of the TiltWives was recently asked if she worried about her husband on these guys’ weekends. Her answer? “Nah, I know that they will never take a long enough break from the action to get into trouble.” Isn’t it great when you find somebody who understands you that well?
• There must be something wrong with me (AKA everyone’s welcome). When I was first invited to a party with some of the Tiltboys, the amazing thing to me was how open and welcoming everybody was. You’d think that a group with as long (and infamous) a history would have become somewhat closed off to outsiders. That was simply not the case. But surely the famous home game is very hard to get into? Nope. I was almost immediately invited and have been part of 80%+ of the games since. O.K., if that is the case, why haven’t the games gotten so large that they are unmanageable? Well, this get’s into my realization that there must be something wrong with me (although I am very happy about it!). You see, when I first played in the home game, I immediately felt comfortable. I embraced the insanity and loved it. Since that point, I’ve probably seen 10 or more non-Tiltboys play in the home game and they all have had the same “deer in the headlights” look in their face as they sat there. Very few have ever been part of more than one game and none have become regulars. Honestly, I am not really sure why the game is intimidating to folks. The stakes aren’t all that high and everyone is very friendly. I think the biggest issue people have is that they haven’t heard of any of the games being played and they don’t really understand the rules. Even if they get a chance to understand one game, it immediately changes to some other bizarre variant. Which brings us to…
• The games they be a changing. So I knew from reading this website that the Tiltboys had a bunch of weird games that they played (e.g. spit-n-shit, ding-a-ling, etc) and I sort of figured that once I learned those games, it would just be a matter of understanding those variants and that would be what we played every week. How wrong I was! I don’t believe that I have ever played in a game where at least one new game or game variant wasn’t introduced. We’ve had whole games where somebody proposed a new game and that is all we played for the whole night. Keep in mind that with very rare exceptions, we don’t play wildcard games or games like Guts. These are almost all split pot (often with a declare) variations of flop, stud or draw games. Something the Tiltboys instinctively understand (that most home games I’ve been part of don’t) is that if the games are static then people have the chance to master them. If all we played was No Limit Hold’em, we would get very bored and somebody might prove themselves to be the best (although who that would be would be a matter of HUGE argument). By constantly changing the games, the question becomes who can most quickly understand the subtleties of the new game as opposed to who has spent the most hours studying a “known” game such as Hold’em.
• Everything you read is true. Most people who read the Tiltboys book would assume that some creative license was taken with the characterizations. Surely Dice isn’t really that lucky? Bruce can’t be that big a space cadet. Phil can’t be THAT easy to tilt! I would have assumed that same if I hadn’t witnessed countless examples of all of the above over the last two years. If Dice has one out which will take the pot away from Lennie then you can pretty much guarantee what will happen. The funniest thing being that Dice has refined this so much that he now let’s Lennie pick his own river card from the deck. Watching Lennie’s hair go from flat to full Tilt after he picks the only card in the deck which costs him the pot seemly like a weekly occurrence. On my last trip to Vegas, I got back from a poker tournament at 3am only to find Bruce and a guy from the hotel trying to figure out what room Bruce was supposed to be in (since he had written the wrong room # down). The stories go on and on. As far as I can tell, getting married and having kids hasn’t really changed the stories, it has just left a lot less time for people to actually *document* the stories. :)
• We can have fun anywhere. On the way back from Cabo, we were waiting in a very long line while Mexico’s version of the TSA was hand inspecting all the suitcases going on our plane. Stern, Paul and I were standing and playing rotating Chinese Poker (Hi-only, Low in the middle, Puerto Vallarta). Dice and Bruce were throwing two handed Roshambo (with doubling and losers’ winning just to make it more interesting). 45 minutes passed in the blink of a moment and all of a sudden it was our turn. Nice. Meanwhile, I observed many other groups of people bitching and moaning about the wait and generally having a miserable time. That was when it really hit me that as long as I was travelling with another Tiltboy, it was guaranteed to be fun.
• Tilt is a hell of a basis for friendship. ‘Nuff said. I have found friends for life and I couldn’t be happier…