Belong Social: Poker Night

​An evening of poker on Friday 23rd October, from 7.30pm, at South Newington near Chipping Norton.

​This one’s for anyone running their own business who fancies a card game without the stakes, whether you’ve played a hundred times or never once. Twenty pounds covers your seat and a grazing board. Bring your own drink. There is betting on the table, but no money changes hands. It is chips and bragging rights only, nothing anyone could cash out. Build & Belong is not registered for gambling, and this stays firmly on the right side of that line.

​Poker turns up in business books for a reason. Every hand asks you to decide without all the facts, read the person opposite, take a loss without letting it make your next decision, and judge the call you made rather than how it turned out. Most of us do all four at work, usually on our own and with real money involved. This is three hours of practising them with people you like, where a bad call costs you a handful of plastic chips.

​You won’t leave a better negotiator after one evening. You will leave having had a proper night out, and knowing which of us cannot bluff, which may well be me.