New #49: Bunco

Bunco seems to be synonous with mothers -- or at least that's what my friends would have me believe. Because anytime I would say I was planning to attend my first Bunco party, the most common reaction was "My mom plays Bunco!". This indeed seems to be true for most families, including my own growing up. Once a month, women eagerly leave their children at home for a night of drinking, gossip and gambling, all cloaked under the innocents of the simple dice game. Really, when you put it like that, Bucno seems pretty cool. So what if I don't have kids to ditch? I'll never turn down an opportunity to have some drinks with the girls.

Kim -- who was of course inspired to play by her mom -- coordinated the night, signing up myself and 10 other people from her work. We met at a friend's house, each of us bringing a $5 buy-in along with an appetizer. With a room full of bakers from Whole Food, you can imagine how yummy these treats were. So with all that good food and good people, we spent the first hour or two drinking, without evening eying the game.

Finally someone pointed out we should probably get started, and we slowly picked a seat at one of the three tables. Kim went over the rules, which are really simple. In round one, each person rolls the three dice and counts how many times they can roll a 1. The same is repeated for round two, only that time you're trying to roll 2's. It doesn't count if you roll two 1's that add up to 2. No, no. No math involved here. You just read the dice and go on from there. My kind of game. Depending on who gets the most points each round, some people move on to the next table or other people join where you are. Whatever happens, the crowd is always changing, which makes for some interesting table talk.

By the time we got the hang of the game -- which actually took much longer than it should thanks to the vodka and wine -- we rolled through it all pretty quickly. Soon, however, we once again lost interest in it all and moved back to the bar to chat. But really, I think that's what Bunco is all about.