Crawler poker run?

[celticsun33]

I would like to have a crawler poker run to raise money for a charity. Has anyone ever put one on or attended one? if so, how was it run?
I was thinking:
1 card at registration
1 card at each stop guaranteed (5 stops)
1 extra card after going through a difficult set of gates.
and a final card for completing the trail.
We already have a site, and a couple possible prizes.
I'm not sure how to lay out the trail though.

Any help or ideas would be great.

[Col_Sanders]

We've had a few poker runs set up here locally. The prize is for ours was usually cash (everyone's buy in). The first time, there was a family swapping cards around with one another to get the best hand. The organizers had to come up with a way to stop cheating.

They usually set a basket with cards by the gates. The cards are inside individual sleeves or envelopes. Go through the gate and grab an envelope. To keep people from cheating, the envelopes should be sealed and only opened at the end of the run by an official. If you have more manpower than $$ for this, have someone at each gate and let them write the name of the person getting the card on each card. I like your idea of getting an extra card by going through a bonus gate. Depending on how honest your attendees are, might want someone there to watch that too.

[celticsun33]

Originally Posted by Col_Sanders

We've had a few poker runs set up here locally. The prize is for ours was usually cash (everyone's buy in). The first time, there was a family swapping cards around with one another to get the best hand. The organizers had to come up with a way to stop cheating.

They usually set a basket with cards by the gates. The cards are inside individual sleeves or envelopes. Go through the gate and grab an envelope. To keep people from cheating, the envelopes should be sealed and only opened at the end of the run by an official. If you have more manpower than $$ for this, have someone at each gate and let them write the name of the person getting the card on each card. I like your idea of getting an extra card by going through a bonus gate. Depending on how honest your attendees are, might want someone there to watch that too.

That's a good point about cheating. I didn't think of that. We don't figure it to be a huge thing probably 30ish drivers.
I'm the only one in my family that crawls so they will get volunteered to help watch the gates. They can make sure extra gates are cleared.
Ideally I would like everyone to finish the course, then go back out and explore but I'm sure that's a pipe dream as there is so many nooks to spend time at. We'll see how this all goes.

[celticsun33]

Just a quick follow up on our poker run. It went off without much headache (poor trail marking on one section of the trail) We ended up having 46 drivers, and raised over $1000. It was such a great day. We got to raise money for a wonderful cause. We got to drive at a great spot. We got to have a great day meeting new friends and spending time with old ones. Thanks for your help everyone.

[meatmonkey]

Wow, that's a great turnout! Glad you pulled it off. Any further suggestions if someone would like to attempt something similar?

[estill]

The car club that I'm affiliated with has the Poker Run down to a science. Like other here have said you need to prevent cheating. What they came up with is an envelope system. First get regular letter sized envelopes and have the numbers 1-52 printed around the edge. Next you make up a paper (cut to fit inside the envelope) with the 52 cards randomly printed around the edge of the paper. When you put the paper into the envelope the cards on the paper line up with the numbers on the envelope. When you "draw a card" at the stop someone punches a hole through the envelope and the paper inside. At the final stop you open the envelope and reveal you hand.

Now that you have the idea I'll fill in the details.

For the envelope, print you numbers inside of a circle. You want to give the person running the stop an aiming point for the hole punch. Also use the center of the envelope as a place for the person's name, registration number, phone number, etc.

The slip of paper obviously has to be one sided, you can get three slips of paper out of an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. First make sure you randomize the cards printed on the paper. Next place a square, circle, or 'X' on what would be directly under the circle on the envelope. (When the hole is punched you want something to make it clear what card was drawn.) Put the card to the inside of your marker. You don't need anything fancy here, 4D and QH are clearly 4 of diamonds, and queen of hearts.

When you stuff the envelops, you have 4 ways of inserting the paper; normal, upside down, face down and normal, and face down and upside down. This is what really randomizes the cards. When you do this any number now has the chance of being 4 different cards. Make sure you seal the envelops.

To draw cards, they have 52 ping pong balls with the numbers 1-52 on them. The night before the balls are randomly split up put into 5 different bags. Each stop gets a bag. (Their Poker runs are typically 300-500 cars so each stop gets two bags. If you are going to do this, make sure the bags at a stop have the same numbered balls. You don't want someone drawing the same number at different stops.)

For a 6th card, just have a bag with 52 balls in it. If they draw a number already punched, have them draw again.

Make sure you are manning the final stop where the envelopes are opened. After you tell them their hand, put it back in the envelope and keep it. This way you can go back and look when someone claims to have a better hand than the winner. This is why you put their name, registration, and phone number on it. Any opened envelops are automatically disqualified.

After that all you need is a good course, and nice weather.

[B-MOW71]

Originally Posted by celticsun33

Just a quick follow up on our poker run. It went off without much headache (poor trail marking on one section of the trail) We ended up having 46 drivers, and raised over $1000. It was such a great day. We got to raise money for a wonderful cause. We got to drive at a great spot. We got to have a great day meeting new friends and spending time with old ones. Thanks for your help everyone.

Glad to hear you had a great turnout! That's awesome that over $1000 was raised!

Was this the poker run that was held at Nelson Ledges this past Saturday the 26th?

[celticsun33]

Originally Posted by B-MOW71

Glad to hear you had a great turnout! That's awesome that over $1000 was raised!

Was this the poker run that was held at Nelson Ledges this past Saturday the 26th?

That's the one. It was such a blessed day for sure.

[celticsun33]

Originally Posted by estill

The car club that I'm affiliated with has the Poker Run down to a science. Like other here have said you need to prevent cheating. What they came up with is an envelope system. First get regular letter sized envelopes and have the numbers 1-52 printed around the edge. Next you make up a paper (cut to fit inside the envelope) with the 52 cards randomly printed around the edge of the paper. When you put the paper into the envelope the cards on the paper line up with the numbers on the envelope. When you "draw a card" at the stop someone punches a hole through the envelope and the paper inside. At the final stop you open the envelope and reveal you hand.

Now that you have the idea I'll fill in the details.

For the envelope, print you numbers inside of a circle. You want to give the person running the stop an aiming point for the hole punch. Also use the center of the envelope as a place for the person's name, registration number, phone number, etc.

The slip of paper obviously has to be one sided, you can get three slips of paper out of an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. First make sure you randomize the cards printed on the paper. Next place a square, circle, or 'X' on what would be directly under the circle on the envelope. (When the hole is punched you want something to make it clear what card was drawn.) Put the card to the inside of your marker. You don't need anything fancy here, 4D and QH are clearly 4 of diamonds, and queen of hearts.

When you stuff the envelops, you have 4 ways of inserting the paper; normal, upside down, face down and normal, and face down and upside down. This is what really randomizes the cards. When you do this any number now has the chance of being 4 different cards. Make sure you seal the envelops.

To draw cards, they have 52 ping pong balls with the numbers 1-52 on them. The night before the balls are randomly split up put into 5 different bags. Each stop gets a bag. (Their Poker runs are typically 300-500 cars so each stop gets two bags. If you are going to do this, make sure the bags at a stop have the same numbered balls. You don't want someone drawing the same number at different stops.)

For a 6th card, just have a bag with 52 balls in it. If they draw a number already punched, have them draw again.

Make sure you are manning the final stop where the envelopes are opened. After you tell them their hand, put it back in the envelope and keep it. This way you can go back and look when someone claims to have a better hand than the winner. This is why you put their name, registration, and phone number on it. Any opened envelops are automatically disqualified.

After that all you need is a good course, and nice weather.

The way we did it each driver received a score sheet and one card at registration. The score card had a empty box for all 52 cards. There was 5 stops along the trail each stop had a person with a deck of cards. Each driver got a card at the stop. 3 of the stops had competition style gate section. If you made it through the gate section cleanly you got an extra card. The person at the stop then initialed the appropriate box on the score card. This way each driver could possibly have 9 cards. The gate sections were NOT easy so 9 cards was very rare. Best 5 card hand won.

I learned a couple things to make the next one smoother.
1. Have 2 volunteers ate each stop.
2. Have the trails marked more clearly. We used flags which for the most part worked out pretty well. We only had one section that cause a little confusion.
3. Have walkie Talkies for each of the volunteers at the stops.

There were quite a few videos of the day posted on youtube. search Nelson Ledges poker run.

[B-MOW71]

Originally Posted by celticsun33

That's the one. It was such a blessed day for sure.

I thought it was. I was bummed that I couldn’t make it. I’m hoping to go next time. A couple crawling buddies went and said it was a good time!

I’ll have to check out the videos on YT!


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