YES, I AM STILL IN THE SAME VEIN — eating ribs and playing Zynga poker like a scholar. I’ve got eight pages of notes so far and 20 raggedy bookmarks inserted over my four-book library. I’m making up rhymes of reason, copying tips and tricks, and over-learning tight card combinations.

Because of my ties to Nevada with my storage, kennel, and rental, I’m often in casino towns. For me, learning poker like it’s a college class of my own design suits my everyday needs. I’m happy to study a stack of books and take notes and quiz myself. I need to earn an A to proceed.

Susan is interested sometimes and tolerant the rest. I admit I need to restructure my nightly marathon sessions. She is sighing more often these days as I poke away at my tablet screen and scribble notes while we are supposedly watching a movie together.

Sometimes I’ll cuss aloud at a bad beat just as the television hero is winning the day, or whoop with joy when the heroine dies. I need to work on my tells.

Higg, a teacher buddy of mine, stopped me in the hall to talk poker the other day. He loves the game, has played in big venues, and read the books. He’s got an awesome poker table for sale, if anyone wants one.

We had a lively conversation. I asked him how long he’s been playing poker and he guessed that he started in the mid-1990s. “What about you?” he asked.

“December of last year, and only with toy money on an app,” I replied. “I have some catching up to do.” He laughed.

This weekend I’m having my first poker party. It will have already happened when you read this on Sunday. Know that a great time was had by all.

A few couples are coming over to play Texas Hold ’em and eat ribs. The night will be more of a training session than a playing session, at least at first.

These are friends who often travel with us to Nevada. They too want any advantage. They want a lesson. I’m eager to teach them; I don’t want to hang out on a Saturday night in Nevada with a grumpy loser. Besides, by teaching, I learn better.

To speak in the briefest of terms, poker is a game of card symmetry, positioning, and modus operandi. This will be my training session theme: Of Math and Men.

I’ll go through each topic, and then we will play cards. I designed color-coated “Tightness Charts” to remind players of optimum starting pairs. Of 169 possible hands, green highlights the top 50, yellow marks the middle 50, and orange warns against the bottom 69 worst card combinations. Players adjust based on their own notion of tightness.

I have no practical experience at poker. I may find that in a live game I’m sea bait. I may be just a scholar. Playing hard-knuckle poker requires traits I’d need to hone, like aggression and the desire to dominate. “I am not gamesome. I do lack some part / Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.” But who knows?Brutus’s speech may spell luck for me; my first name is Anthony.

I had no past experience with smoking meat beyond November of last year, and now my ribs are tasting mighty fine. I never tiled a shower until I tiled one, and it’s a good-looking shower; I’ve tiled three more since then. I hadn’t played a pinball machine since I was a kid, but in the last two years I’ve put in a hundred hours and hit several top scores. I played SimCity for 15 months and won top casino city globally three times. These are just goofy personal hobbies, but I like to run with them right into the ground. It’s never too late to start a new hobby and become good at it.

Susan, though miffed at times because she’s lost her husband, again, to some obsession, encourages me to continue my studies. I figure she encourages to keep me from being under foot.

One recent holiday morning she awoke at dawn to find me lying beside her playing Zynga poker in the dark. I woke up at 3:50 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I played poker. Instead of “Oh, dear God, when will it ever end!” she said, “Are you winning?”

Wow. She was feigning interest. This was great. I could talk poker to her. It helps me to vocalize when I’m learning. “Yes. I happen to be ahead right now.”

“I can only see that you have hearts. Is it a good hand?” Awesome. She was asking about card rankings. Now I could jabber on about flushes and straights, and I did, and she listened intently.

Finally, with a smile, I said, “Thank you so much, honey, for feigning interest in poker this morning. I really appreciated the chance to talk it out.”

She smiled back. “I wasn’t feigning interest. I’m happy that you’re studying card games. You keep right on playing.”

I asked, “Is that because you like to play Pai Gow yourself and when we’re retired, you might want to try to play poker with me?”

“No,” she replied. “It’s because poker may postpone your senility.”

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.