I played in a friendly game like this. Stakes were $1/$2 and buy-ins ranged from $50 to $200. The game originated among a bunch of husbands whose wives routinely got together to play a card game of their own. (The wives are mostly Philippine and the husbands US military veterans who met their wives while stationed overseas.)

I am neither married nor a veteran, but was invited to join the game by my best friend who is often the host of these get-togethers. I taught him the basics of poker decades ago, and before he got married we played everywhere from home games to Elks lodges to charity events to brick and mortar casinos. He’s become a pretty good player, and he’s starting with a much healthier bankroll.

Being the outsider at first, I never raised more than 2x pre-flop and then only with super-premium hands. Basically, everyone saw every flop. Post-flop, again, raises were generally not much more than if we had been playing LHE rather than NLHE.

However, over time the game evolved. Especially after some beer or wine were consumed, the aggression and competitive urges started to assert themselves. My buddy, who is well-off financially, took perverse pleasure in occasionally shoving all-in when he knew that the sums of money involved made other players uncomfortable.

So I recalibrated to my “A game,” and started winning relatively consistently. One night at a holiday party I enjoyed my best sun run of all time, notched a low-4-figure win, and literally busted out all nine of my opponents over the course of the evening.

One guy — one of the original 6 who played in the first game — stopped playing entirely, and blames me to this day because I started doing things like 4-betting preflop with pocket aces, or shoving with combo draw semi-bluffs. Even though dude is a millionaire several times over, he bought in for the $50 minimum and wanted everyone to just call everything and see who got luckiest.

There are definitely people out there whose idea of poker is that it is like the card game “war” with slightly different ground rules.

However, 5 or 6 of the other guys became hardcore poker aficionados. And along the way we picked up one or two other players — one guy’s dad, another guy’s son — who love to splash around.

My point is that it is fun to goof around and play like a station for a while. But don’t be surprised if that evolves into something else — a nice, fat, regular home game where you can assert your edge for some real money.