Enjoyment in the Cards for Senior Poker Players

Tethered by a breathing tube to her mobile oxygen tank, Katie “Dynamite” Rahder never took her eyes off the cards as she cocked an ear.

"Poker is probably the best thing for me, from a standpoint of keeping the mind sharp," he said.
Nearby, Bill Bruner was waxing philosophic amid fellow coffee sippers waiting for the morning Omaha high/low tournament to begin: “Confucius say,” Bruner intoned, “men learn nothing while talking.”

“Amen!” responded Dynamite, eliciting chuckles as she tossed another handful of chips into the seven-card-stud pot.Some senior citizens stroll the beach in the morning. Some tee it up on the golf course, take the dog for its daily constitutional or volunteer at church.

And some trade $100 bills for stacks of poker chips to engage in an often friendly, sometimes fierce, battle of wits around a green-felt table. In an era when America finds itself awash in legalized gambling, poker rooms at local casinos are elbowing aside the neighborhood coffee shop and bridge club as places where retirees come together to wile the day away.

“The main thing is the camaraderie,” said the 82-year-old Dynamite, known for her collection of colorful hats and take-no-prisoners approach to poker.

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