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Planning a Poker Run
What do you get when you mix together fast cars, motorcycles, boats or any other method of travel and a good old fashion deck of cards? A POKER RUN!
A Poker Run is a race with many different check stops along the way. Each person in the Poker Run draws a card from a deck of cards at each checkpoint and at the end of the competition, the Poker Run participant with the best poker hand wins.
What does it take to organize a Poker Run? A group of people, with a passion for the same forum of transportation. A deck or several decks of cards, and a map for each participant.
The first thing you should know before you start organizing your Poker Run is that it will take just that, a lot of organization. The more organized you can be the smoother your Poker Run will go. So let's get started. The fist thing you need to do is look at your group of people and the transportation that they are passionate about. Are you already part of a vintage car club or a speed boat organization? If so you could start by planning a Poker Run with that group in mind.
Once you have the size of your group and the type of transportation established you can begin to work out the details. We are going to assume that we are part of a vintage car club that has 30 active members. The ideas that we talk about here could be applied to a Poker Run for: speed boats, motorcycles, horseback or any other forum of transportation.
The next question to consider is how long you want the Poker Run to last. Are you looking to have it completed in an hour or do you have two days? If your Poker Run is for motor vehicles most or all of it's going to be taking place on public roads so you do not want to set the Poker Run up as a test of speed but rather one of problem solving and planning.
Back to the time issue. Let's assume that you have fours hour for your event. Most likely you will want everyone to start from the same point and as a result you will need to use a staggered start. My suggestion would be to subtract three minutes for every participant that you have from your total time then set up the driving course to be this long at average legal traveling speeds. For example if we have 30 participants, 30 times 3 is 90 minutes. Four hours minues 90 minutes is two and half hours of travel time. You will want to have no less then five check points and if you are going to have more then ten check points then you will have to have participants give back some of their cards along the way.
You will want a good map of the area that you are having your Poker Run in. You should have the checkpoints clearly marked on the map or you may wish to make it more of a treasure hunt with only clues, having the participants try and work out where the checkpoints are. You could also use a combination of the two. Either way once a participant makes it to a check point they will receive a card.
The last thing you will want to consider is prizes and entry fees. You may set it up just for the fun of it having no prizes or entry fees. It could also be set up with an entry fee - all of it going to prizes, donating a portion to a charitable organization, and/or the organizers of the Poker Run. Remember the higher the entry fee and larger the prizes the more organized the event will have to be. If it is just for fun the checkpoints will not have to be manned, if there is big prize money each check stop will have to be monitored and you will have to have some type of controls in place to insure the cards are handed out fairly. However you plan your Poker Run have fun with it and be safe.
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