How Far Can $5 Go?

At my father's house every year on the last Saturday of July is a party/horseshoe tournament. This was the first year that I decided to go. I am not good at horseshoes, but I like to play. My dad holds two double elimination tournaments during the day. One tournament for the early birds who want to start getting wasted at 2:00, and another that is supposed to start at 5:00. The tournament is a doubles event where you draw for a partner! Thus everyone wants to be partnered up with my dad. He is the best at this given party, but not that great of a horseshoe player on a scale of 1 - 10. If there is a person who can't even make the pit being a 1 and a 10 being someone who ringers every throw being a ten, my dad is probably a 5. Me, maybe I might make a rating of a 4? At this tournament however there is my dad being rated a ten, because mostly everyone else sucks and then myself probably about an 8 or a 9? There was one more player that ranked with me at an 8 or 9 at the party, but I figured he wouldn't be able to last while drinking so much liquor.
I showed up for the first tournament at 2:00, and there was maybe 7 teams. I drew a gentleman that I had never met, but knew his wife since I was probably 5. She was a girl who lived next door to my grandma, who was a few years older than me. Anyway, her husband was a wicked nice guy, and he didn't throw horseshoes all that bad. On the pro scale he might make a 3 or a 4? At this party, maybe a 7 at the most. I thought he was going to do better than he did, but I wasn't too upset with the draw. I score the majority of our points, but he helped in times of need. We ended up losing our first match! It was a double elimination tournament format, so we still had a chance. We won our next few matches, while my dad's team was the only undefeated team left. We then had another match with the same team that beat us earlier in the day. We killed them and it was down to the final two teams. Cary and myself and my dad and his partner. We had to beat my father's team two games in order to win. I wasn't thinking that we would be able to win, but I threw a ringer to cancel out my dad's ringer in the first match. We ended up winning the first match. Then my dad wants to switch the side that he is throwing from (avoiding me in the process) and Cary said he wanted to stay on the same side that he had been on all day. This leaves him trying to score over my dad! This match didn't go well at all! The game was over before it began. I called my dad a chicken for not wanting to play against me, but it was all in vain because he and his partner won the money. The tournament is only $5 to play, the blind draw thing is pretty messed up, but gives those who can't play a chance to get partnered up with my dad and then they might win the money. It is a winner take all event.
Tournament number 2 starts at about 6, there are 10 teams giving $50 to each player on the winning team. There are women who can't even throw from pit to pit playing, drunken guys who can barely stand playing and then a select few who can score are drinking more and more as the night wears on! A double elimination tournament with so many drunks was going to take all night! My partner and I win our first two matches and we didn't play another game after that until after dark because of the losers bracket being eliminated. My dad and his partner ended up losing a match somewhere in the midst of all the drunken madness! I was becoming optimistic with the news of my father only needing one more loss to be out. Not that I figured that my partner and I would win, because we had only played to poor teams. However, if my dad's team was to lose then that gets rid of the best player at the party. Cary and I drew each other again in the second tournament as well. I of course wanted to draw my dad, but wasn't too upset about drawing Cary again because he had already agreed to be on the opposite side as my father in the game. Thus, he wouldn't have to try to beat my dad, I would be the one to take on that task. The tournament was taking much too long like I said, and it was already dark. We were throwing horseshoes from pit to pit by the light of two spot lights. This is fine, but you have no idea how you threw the horseshoe until it hits either the pit, or something else down on that end of the yard! The time had come for Cary and I to play in our third match, yeah! Sheri had taken Triton home way before this so that he would be able to go to sleep, so I was babysitting a bunch of drunks and trying to play a tournament at the same time. I was so tired from already golfing earlier that day and the previous tournament, but I wanted to stick around to win $50.00.
Third match was between the two undefeated teams. On the other team was Dena's (my step mom) brother Joe and his partner. Joe is one of the funniest guys you will ever meet in your life. He was one of the first people who wasn't related to me that liked me for who I was. He lives in Boise and I had never met him until I was about 16 years old. He attended a dinner with my dad, Dena and her parents at my place of employment. I worked as a busboy at a local restaurant and that was when I had first met Joe. I didn't think anything of him at the time, but after meeting him once or twice I remember Dena saying that Joe really liked me? This was, again like I said, a new experience for me. Never had an adult other than family and co-workers liked me after meeting me. Sure people liked me, but never had someone said they thought that I was so funny and liked me after one or two meetings. It might have been because I am a shy person, or maybe I might be an acquired taste, who knows? After Dena informed me that Joe liked me and thought I was funny I payed more attention to him when he visited. He was married and had a child of his own who was maybe 3 or 4 years old at the time. I have invaded his home when staying in Boise many times, and when he is in town I try to visit him. He is one of the nicest, funniest and selfless people you will ever know. He is for sure an acquired taste of his own, because he doesn't care who is around, he will speak his mind! Especially when he is drunk! Like this Saturday, he supposedly never knew that I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Mormon as he was calling me. "No, I won't have any mormons taking my money," he says as we begin our third match of the night. Joe is now divorced, but has custody of his child who is now 16 years old himself.
Our match began, and Joe's partner was about an equal to Cary, and I was a bit better than Joe, so we should have won. In fact that is what we did! The match was just as easy as our first two matches and that left us still unbeaten. A few more matches went by eliminating every team except for my dad's and Joe's. The winner of this match was going to have to face Cary and myself for the money. It was nice to be in the title match and having a chance to win the money without losing and without even being close to losing.
Joe and his partner was the obvious team that I was rooting for, because I didn't want to have to face my dad again. My dad was so drunk, but that really doesn't affect his throwing ability. My wish was granted, because Joe and his partner pulled out into an early lead. We were only going to 11, and Joe's team was up like 9 - 3. The games have to be won by two points, and I thought the money was gone when my dad pulled his team into a tie game of 10 - 10. My dad was starting to focus more and more and I could see in his eyes that he wanted to win. Joe pulled an amazing win in the very end, and I was mega relieved. My partner Cary, unknown to me, had already written Cary and Jason Win on the board. I would have erased that had I known about it, because I don't like to celebrate until the game is over. He hadn't just written this message either! He had written this a few hours earlier. Well, he was trying to celebrate with me before our first match for the title as well. I told him to stay focused (however focused drunk people can) and not to celebrate too early. We had to play Joe's team again, a team that we had stomped some hour ago into the ground. The title match wasn't as easy, and for some reason I knew it wasn't going to be.
Joe's partner threw a ringer his very first throw giving them a 3 - 0 lead. We ended up getting one somewhere? Then they scored two more, giving them a 5 - 1 lead. We come back with a flurry and the score is 9 - 5 us and I could taste victory. Of course Joe's partner throws another ringer and the score is 9 to 8. Joe is first to throw now, and he throws one that is leaning. At my dad's house a leaner is only 1 point, but nonetheless it is a point and the score is going to be 9 - 9 unless I can get him off of the peg! I throw the first it landed close but Joe still has the point. I throw the next and it knocks his shoe off the peg. All I am hoping for now is that it knocked it off and I am closer giving us a 10 - 8 lead!? Cary and this other gentleman (Joe's partner) are assessing the score and Cary says we won? I guess my second shoe knocked Joe's completely out of the scoring range and both of my shoes were close enough to score, giving us an 11- 8 winning score. It was a fun game, but I would rather win by a landslide then only a minuscule amount. I grabbed my $50 and went home. Got home just before 2:00am!
From this $5, I made $50. From this $50, I have used $40 of it to enter a golf tournament. I think the winner usually gets a little over $200.00 club house credit. So, again I ask "How far can $5 go?"
From the title of the blog, you might be wondering why I said $5 instead of $10.00 since I had to pay $5 twice to play in both tournaments right? Well, just after the first tournament was over, my step-sister Stacy challenged me to a match for $5. I told her no, that we could just play for fun because I didn't want to take her money. Well, she kept going on and on, so I accepted her (already drunk at the time) challenge and beat her. Taking her $5 was easy, but her own fault! I thought that she might have been practicing a bunch and I was getting taken, but I played anyway. She did have a 1- 0 lead on me, but that was it, I threw a couple of ringers and the game was over.