What Is A Poker Run

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The In's & Out's of a Poker Run

Very Helpful Info!!! The idea of a poker run is pretty simple. It has been done for ages by motorcycle clubs and car clubs. You start out with a list of stops, and for each stop you get to draw a playing card. Usually there are five stops. Sometimes there are seven and the player takes the best five cards for their hand. At the final destination the player with the best over all poker hand wins. Its not real complicated. Poker runs can be strictly for fun or to raise money. The two common things are to have a fifty / fifty for the winners or to have a fixed prize cash or something else. Decide this up front. Let me digress for a moment. Many times I have seen people upset about the way a game or event has been run over something that could have been prevented by simply making the rules, restrictions, etc clear up front. For a money making poker run I prefer a straight fifty percent to the winner(s) with maybe a 2/3 - 1/3 split for high and low or 1st and second. There is a very good reason to have multiple winners in your poker run. If you are having a raffle, fifty/fifty raffle, auction or other related money makers as part of your event it gives more people a reason to hang around. People won't automatically leave the moment somebody beats their hand. Don't give in to the temptation to change the prize for a poker run if you have a good turn out and the money rolls in. Remember 1/2 of a pot is better than 2/3s of nothing. You may also have accusation of fraud if anybody notices or worse... People won't come to your events in the future. I've seen it happen. Keep your finances straight, and keep good track of what is going on and you will have a reputation to build on. A Dice Run is similar to a poker run, in that you go to several stops. It can be run as simple list of stops or a clue gathering and figuring expedition. The basic premise is similar to a Poker Run, but the gist of it it is that at each stop there is a cup of 5 (flexible) dice. The rider rolls the dice and the person at the stop rights their total score on the riders score sheet and initials it. At the final destination the score is totalled up and the riders with the highest and lowest scores win. Thats my two bits about making two bits. Now lets talk about another possible problem. Liability. Anytime you have a possibility of somebody getting hurt in this country you risk getting sued. Don't get gun shy now. I have been on lots of poker runs and I have not seen anybody sue the promoters or sponsors of a run yet. It can happen, but probably won't I'll leave it to you to decide how much risk you have and what to do about it. Here are some of the things you can do to limit your risk. Remember I am just a motorcycle enthusiast. I'm not lawyer so I suggest for large events or if you feel your risk is high that you contact a business or accident lawyer. Some lawyers will offer advice on this type of thing pro bono (free) as they support the motorcycle community. If you feel need of legal council see if you can find one in your area. Also, motorcycle associations like the AMA or ABATE often have good advice in these areas as well as connections that can help you. Here are some simpler things you can do to limit liability. Have all participants sign a simple release form. This may not help in the event of gross negligence, but it could help if a simple accident occurs. You may also want to consider event insurance. A small poker run may only making a few dollars so insurance may cost you more than the event is worth. On the other hand event insurance for a larger event may be relatively inexpensive. For a recent one day rally with over 2000 participants the insurance was only a couple hundred dollars. Not unreasonable at all. Now that you are scared to death of the lawyers and the idiots out there I'll leave you to make your own decisons about how to manage the risk. Just remember to bear it in mind. Lets get down to work. We have decided we are going to have a poker run. We need to make some decisons and some guesses. You can do something very simple or you can get really fancy. How many people do you think will show up and how hard are you going to promote your poker run. A simple poker run may be put together in a a week and done the next weekend. The simplest and usually easiest poker run to do is what is often called a bar run. Pick a start point and a cost for the run. When people sign up give them a list of bars where they can pick up a match book or get the bartender to initial their stop list. Pick a final destination. When they get to the final destination shuffle a deck of cards and let them pick five cards out of the deck. Then reshufle and do it again for the next rider. Best hand or hands win. Pretty basic stuff. There are some definite benefits to a simple bar run. It takes very little planning. Its easy to get help since the bar owners and bartenders are more than willing to take a few seconds out, because it generates traffic in their establishement. It is easy to manage, and the cards hands are easy to keep track of. People definitely won't complain that it is too difficult or that they are getting thirsty. There are some draw backs too. It is simple and people who have been on tons of poker runs will get bored with it. Some people will not appreciate going to a bunch of bars. (take that for what its worth) Many bars will not allow minors inside at all. Personaly I like to take my kids on fun runs sometimes. A run that takes people through a bunch of back country figuring out clues to the next stop and picking up tokens at odd locations in the middle of nowhere may be the trick to make your run a little different. Its a bit more entertaining. Its also a bit more work to plan, and the bar people may complain about their dry throats. (again take that for what its worth) One thing I saw Yuma HOG do was to have two different routes for a poker run. Its more work, but it gives some additional variety. One fun bar to bar run I went on had us picking up a sealed envelope at each stop. Inside each envelope was from one to three cards. The envelope was picked at random by the bartender and handed to the rider who was not allowed to open it until they reached their final destination. As a result some people only had five cards and some people had as many as ten or twelve. As a result there were a lot more good poker hands and the excitement level was much higher. Another that sounded like a lot of fun is a "Zany Darts - Poker Run." I first heard about it from an article written by Amanda Hargis. I received her permission to copy the article verbatim from usenet and post it on my website. It is on the HOW TO articles page of my site and you can link back to her web site from there if you want to read other articles by Amanda. The gist of it was that at each stop the rider had to play an odd and original poker darts variation for their card. For those who don't know, poker darts is often played as an auxilary game at an event. Basically you throw darts at a board with playing cards stuck to it. If you hit a card it is part of your poker hand. Best hand wins etc etc etc... If you want to read more about poker darts I have an article about it on my HOW TO page. To get back to the subject at hand, at each stop a single dart or sometimes more, depending on the circumstances was thrown to determine the card for that stop. One was to throw blind over a pool table at a poker darts board laying out of site on the floor on the other side another was with a bow and arrow. After reading Amanda's article I thought of several other variants that could have been done. Let your imagination run wild. Maybe some kind of spinning wheel and a dart gun or a bunch of soup cans with a playing card in each one and a small bean bag to throw... The idea of the last couple of paragraphs has been to get your creative juices flowing. Now lets talk about finishing up your run. At the start people signed up during a particular time period. You should have a reasonable time for your LAST HAND DRAWN. For instance if you sign in ended at 12:00 pm and it takes three hours to run straight through your ride then you need to add a little time for people to play around at each stop or maybe take a bathroom or lunch break. It might be tempting to say that the last hand will be drawn when the last rider shows up, but don't do it. Pick a reasonable time and stick pretty close to it. Some people won't finish the run. Some may have had other things turn up. A few people just come to show support and then go home. Others start having fun at one of the stops and don't leave until much later. For whatever reason some people just won't make it to the final destination. figure at least 15 or twenty minutes at each stop and then add a little more time. A noon start with a three hour ride and five stops should have a final hand around five or six in the evening. Too early and many people won't get there on time. Too late and people will get bored and leave. As long as we are talking about your final destination... Are you going to have just a simple poker run? Do you want to have a raffle? If you do then you need to get prizes. How about a fifty/fifty raffle for cash? Make sure its legal. Nothing like getting busted to ruin an otherwise wonderful event. Are you going to have food or beverages at the end? Will it be part of the price of the poker run or will it be extra? If its at a public place how will you keep freeloaders from eating and drinking at your expense? Do you care if they do? How about the promotion before hand. For a simple poker run you can just print a few flyers and place them in key locations like local motorcycle shops and known biker bars. For a more involved poker run you may want to do some media advertising. If its for charity, you may be able to get local TV, radio, and newspapers to do PSAs (public service announcements) for free. Here comes the broken record. I have a couple articles that discuss some other options for promotion on my website. Finally, and most importantly. Look over your plan and see if you think you will meet your goals. They should include making sure that your participants have fun. That you are not doing anything overly dangerous either for your riders or yourself. If you are trying to raise money, are you sure your expenses will be paid? Do you have all your resources handled. Are you going to have enough help to have a little fun yourself? A quick and dirty poker run can be planned very easily, by anybody who spends a little time. A more extravagant run can stiil be done, but you will probably need a little more help. Don't let yourself be limited by the few ideas I put forth in this article. Its just a simple base line to start from. Let your imagination run wild a bit. Don't shoot down your own ideas either. Just think of anything you want to, then after you quit coming up with ideas look at the practicalities. Define your goals. Pick something you can do, and then do it.
Wet-n-Wild Wet 'n Wild is a fun game on a hot day. It can be run in a number of ways depending on how many water troughs you can get your hands on and how many buckets the same size. A single large water trough or even a wading pool will do for part of the game. Then multiple buckets or containers the same size and some mixing bowls that are all the same size. I'll write this up around a wading pool and set it up as a multiple team event. I'll even try and design it around my standard track layout I use in several other examples. This is a rider passenger game, and it is usually run with a fixed time limit of two minutes per heat. Each rider and passenger and passenger starts in the safety area at the end of the track near the buckets shown in the diagram. Both teams are given a large shallow mixing bowl. The passenger must ride astraddle the passenger seat of the motorcycle while holding the bowl on top of their head. When the officials yells start and starts the clock the rider drives to the safety area at the other end of the track where they must stop to let the passenger dismount. While the passenger is off the bike the rider must turn the bike around and point it back toward the other end of the field. At this time the passenger runs to the wading pool and dips the bowl into the pool to fill it with water. Then they get back on the motorcycle behind the rider and place the bowl back on top of their head. The passenger must be seated across the seat of the motorcycle and the bowl must be held on top of their head before the rider drives the motorcycle out of the mount and dismount area. When the team gets back to the end of the field where the buckets are located the rider must stop and allow the passenger to dismount. Then while the passenger runs over and dumps the remaining water in the bowl in the bucket on their side of the field the rider again get the bike turned around and pointed the other way. Again the passenger remounts and places the bowl on top of their head. They repeat the process until the official calls time. At the end of the heat the team with the highest water level wins. Because of the amount of time involved if you have a lot of teams wanting to ride you might want to consider the amount of space you have available. If you have the buckets, bowls, wading pools, and space available it might be to your advantage to setup multiple tracks and run more than two competing teams at a time. For safety sake you might consider a rule that the rider must turn around within their own lane at each end of the track. For a little added fun, if you have hay bales around your track for safety you might consider putting the wading pool or water trough on the other side of the hay bales and making the passenger climb over them to fill their bowl.			Slow Race The slow race is a test of riding skill. The basic premise it to selct a limited size track per bike, and the last one to cross the finish line without putting a foot down, going out of bounds, or stopping wins. The track layout for a good slow race is with lanes one yard wide and twenty yards long. Some event holders put the lanes side by side, but I personally think for safety there should be a safety area between the lanes. You can line up two or more slow ride lanes. I have seen as many as ten riders going at one time. If you have a small number of competitors two lanes at a time with a tournament style elimination works well. If you have a bunch of competitors then more lanes to eliminate more riders quickly is needed. Basic rules are: #1.Must not put foot down. #2.Tires must stay within lane. #3.If the tire touches the lane line it is out of bounds. #4.A full stop is not allowed. #5.May not fall down. #6.Last rider who's front tire touches the finish line wins. This event can be done on paved surfaces, dirt, grass, or even on mud. (yes I have seen slow rides done on mud) On paved surfaces painted lines are best, but tape, or field talc will work also. On dirt surfaces I have seen the lanes layed out with string and stakes, but filed marker talc seems to work the best
Barrel Race Barrel races are one of my favorite games. Unless you have a lot of space available you will want to run this as a two riders at a time elimination. We do this on a track that is twenty yards by twenty yards with a divider down the middle, and a starting line ten feet back from one end of the track. Take a look at my track layout on the last page. Each rider lines up on the starting line, and an empty beer keg is set on the edge of the track area in front of each rider. The kegs that are barrel shaped rather than cylindrical are better because they wobble when they roll making it more interesting, but any medium or large metal beer keg will do. The small pony kegs do not seem to work well, but if thats all you have then go for it. I imagine in a pinch any barrel that is light enough would work, but beer kegs tend to hold up better to the abuse than oil drums. You must use empty kegs. Full kegs won't move very well, and the beer is too foamy afterward. Actualy people will get hurt with full kegs. Its like running your bike into a brick wall. When the referee gives the signal the riders ride to the kegs and try to push, hit, roll, or knock the kegs off the far end of the track with their motorcycle. They can walk their bike or ride it, but they must advance the keg with the bike. If they kick the keg with a foot, or push it off the track on either side they are disqualified. They may back up their bike or pull up and block the keg from rolling out of bounds with their bike. After they get the keg off the end of the track they must then ride past the keg and push it back in the other direction until it passes the starting point. The first keg across the start point wins. I have seen riders roll the keg with the front wheel the entire distance, and I have seen riders hit the keg hard with the front wheel and knock it half way across the track. Whatever works. Promoting Your Event Great events sometimes die because nobody knew about them. I have been to events that were absolutely fantastic. Free beer or at least part of the basic sign in cost. Games, live music, helicopter rides. Event t-shirts, included meals. All that as part of a basic sign in package. It isn't worth a damn if nobody shows up. I have another article here on one way to finance and increase our coverage for paid advertising, but this is about free promotion. Web listings are a nice place to start. If you are viewing this article you have web access or you know somebody who does. Web calendars and magazine calendars are good for two things. When planning an event you can check for conflicts with other events. You might have a great new venue, but find that you had originally planned to have it in the same area and the same time as an established and popular event. That will cut your attendance before you even start. The other thing is that they make a place to list your own event so that hopefully others in your area will schedule around it. How do you get on a web calendar. Usually if you can find the listing it will have a link or e-mail address you can send the particulars of your event to. How do you find them. I started by picking my favorite search engine and typing in, calendar +motorcycle. As this site develops it will have links to motorcycle events calendars right here, but this is a new site, and I haven't had the time yet. The other thing the web is good for is locating media resources. Many motorcycle magazines and newspapers list motorcycle events coming up. As soon as possible you need to get your planned event into these. There are thousands and thousands of people who read motorcycle magazine event calendars. Most of thes are free to get your event listed in. Some you will need to fax, or call. Some will want you to send it in writing vial regular mail. Many others can take your information via e-mail directly over the web. In fact with some media I have found that events that are e-mailed often get listed faster than event information that is faxed to the same office. The reason for that, is if an office is computerized and networked all they have to do is cut your information from your e-mail and pstes it directly into their publishing system. I ranted on a bit there about web resources, connections, e-mail etc... Well local TV, Radio, and Newspapers have coming events areas and do PSAs. That is public service announcements. It can be as simple as e-mailing your event to the right person at your local newspaper or faxing it to the local radio and TV stations. You may even be given the opportunity to do live on air televison and radio spots regarding your event. Send the info to them as early as possible so it has the time to make deadlines and get approval from the producers, editors, and other head persons in charge. Also, send the info again shortly before your event to refresh their memories. If you aren't sure about the best way to approach these people just pick up the telephone and call them. Explain your event. Tell them when where and how much. Let them know who it benefits. If you have a chairity benefit run or event you can be almost guaranteed of some of these doing publics service announcements on your event. If its something that may be of public interest even if it doesn't benefit a recognized charity you will probably still get your event listed in the local paper's coming events section. Just by calling, faxing, and e-mailing every possible source of promotions I will almost guarantee that you will get some free promotion for your event. ALL INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE IS PROPERTY OF MC KNIGHT "HOW TO" PAGE AND CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE FOLLOWING LINK MC KNIGHT'S "HOW TO" PAGE			Plank Ride The plank ride is a basic skills test. A plank is selected. Then each contestant rides onto one end of the blank and off of the other end. A two by four or two by six that is ten feet long is usually adequate depending on the skill level of your contestants. Anybody who rides off the side of the plank is disqualified. Usually only a couple of rounds is needed to eliminate your competitors. If need be the plank can be covered with motor oil to make it more slippery. If you do this please caution your riders to take it easy riding home with oil on their tires. The balancing plank ride is a variant that is played the same way except the two by four is layed across another two by four in the middle. As the bike rides over the center point the plank will rock on the fulcrum. This is enough to mess up a few riders who can ride the level plank easily. Again if your contestants are too good motor oil can be added to the plank to add to the degree of difficulty in later rounds. I have also seen plank ride final rounds where contestants have been totally uneliminatable done as a side by side slow race competition. Very rarely is it necessary to go this far. Usually just a couple more runs on the level plank and somebody will mess up.
			Tennis Ball Drop The rider drives past the tube(a 10ft plastic drain pipe about 1-2ft higher on one end works well here) and the passenger drops the the tennis ball in the top end. As the ball rolls down the tube the rider synchronizes their speed with the ball by watching it roll past small cut outs in the tube. When the ball rolls out the bottom end of the tube the passenger reaches down and catches it. It is not easy.