During the Covid-19 Pandemic, South Africa has had one of the longest, and most restrictive lockdowns in the world. For an extrovert like myself, this has been a trying time as I’ve tried to play my part in limiting the possible transmission of the Corona Virus.
I’m extremely fortunate that I’ve been able to work from home, so I haven’t gone totally crazy, but I did need to find a substitute for my usual array of social activities, choir, cricket, board games, and braais with friends, to name a few.
ENTER ONLINE POKER
A close group of friends used to be really into our poker, and we would regularly convene to play cards over weekends. However, due to the length of the game, and the growing number of people who didn’t enjoy the game, our poker nights dwindled as time went by and other, more inclusive, activities started to happen more regularly.
However, with all the time available to us during the lockdown, and many of the activities not being transferrable to an online environment, Poker has once again become our social activity of choice. Due to Gambling Laws in South Africa, we may not play for money, but that hasn’t stopped us from enjoying the competition and the comeraderie.
I GOTS TO KNOW
As we started playing more games, patterns started emerging. Certain players were either getting knocked out early or finishing close to the top. Others were consistently in the top half, but not really winning much. And so, the data nerd in me kicked in and decided we needed a tool to analyse our performance. And thus, was the Lockdown Poker dashboard born.