Rick Salois, a hockey referee, is far enough along into the game to have acquired a nickname — a must-have for serious players. His is “hackey,” and it comes from a hackey-sack he fiddles with while playing. (Raymer’s comes from fossils he uses as card protectors.) His parents have grown used to his habit by now, and don’t mind it “as long as it doesn’t turn into a problem.”
Perhaps what is unusual about players like Salois, and his friend Adam Randall, a University of Maine at Augusta student, is that they do not fall to the lure of playing big.
“In college, we played quarter games, or dollar games,” Salois said. “Every once in while we play $5 to $10 games.” His biggest losses run up to about $30 or $40.
For Salois, who says he is “terrible at counting cards,” the point is to relieve tension and socialize.
“There’s a (online) sidebar with a chat tab, and for the most part, it’s pretty friendly,” he said.
Randall, 24, plays the game more often, Togel Hongkong logging on nearly every day, he said. He picked the game up three years ago, also in college. But the stakes stay low.
“You can play as big as $200 or $400, or as low as $5 or $10 or even 5 cents or 10 cents,” he said. “The (Web) sites don’t make money.”
Brian Lessels, a freshman at Colby College, said that he …
