New Idria Poker Run
We've all done it. Signed up for a poker run, get three cards in and have a crap hand and lose all enthusiasm for the remainder of the ride.
Now, honestly if you sign up for a charity poker run with the expectation of winning and coming out ahead, then you're probably doing it for the wrong reason. But, from a competitive spirit kind of thing, we all hate to lose and it's even worse when halfway through the game you know there's no way you can win.
That's why we like a slight variation on this old standard..the POKER CHIP RUN.
What makes this game better than a standard 5 card poker run is NOBODY has a clue if they have a good hand or a bad hand until they return to the starting point.
We've all done it. Signed up for a poker run, get three cards in and have a crap hand and lose all enthusiasm for the remainder of the ride. Now, honestly if you sign up for a charity poker run with the expectation of winning and coming out ahead, then you're probably doing it. The New Idria Mine, once the #2 producer of mercury in the US, is a classic example of how private industry, if unchecked, ruins and pollutes the environment. Clear Creek on the other hand is a case of environmentalists run amok, and using dubious science, shuts down a popular Off-Highway-Vehicle Recreation Area (they're using the same tactics.
That helps you (as the event organizer) in several ways. The first is the majority of your participants will enjoy the event all the way through, you'll ensure that almost everyone will return to the start (instead of dropping out halfway) and the old 'I don't know how to play poker' excuse some people use for not attending your event.
How it works
The poker chip run is the simplest run you can set up. Here's what you need to do.
1. Decide on the number of stops you will have. Typically you can have as many as 5 or as few as three. If you're short on volunteers to man your stops, then we recommend having only 1 additional stop someone along the route. This gives you 3 draws from the poker chip bag. One when they register and before they leave, one at the stop out on the route, and one when they return to the starting point.
Get a set of generic poker chips, or contact Custom Products Plus (478-299-4601) for custom printed chips.
Divide the chips into equal numbers in a opaque bag so your participants can't see which color they're getting.
At each stop have your participants draw out 3 chips. Then note the colors drawn on their registration sheet.
That's it. Pretty simple huh?
Oh yea, once everyone leaves for the run, or (preferably) once everyone is back in and all the sheets have been returned, stage a public drawing where you put 1 chip of each color in the bag and have a volunteer reach into the bag and blindly draw out a chip. The first chip drawn is worth 20 points, the second chip is worth 10 points and the third chip is worth 5 points.
For example, if the first chip drawn is red, then every red chip drawn on the ride is worth 20 points. If the second chip is white then all the white chips are worth 10 points and the blue chips were worth 5 points.
The beauty of this is that because the value of the chips wasn't established until AFTER the ride concluded, no one knew if they had a good hand or not. They could've had all blue chips, or all red chips or all white chips and they either won big, or was a big loser!
Just make sure the person blind drawing the chips has no way to tell which color is which when they're in the bag and that person doesn't know anything about the participants scores or who has what colors on their sheets.
But if it's a blind draw, it's still pretty hard for anyone to cheat with this system.
If you have questions, or need more info, call us at Biker Nation, 478-268-7528 and we'll be happy to answer any questions about this system. We've used this dozens of times and it works great!
Idria | |
|---|---|
New Idria grounds, 2004 | |
Location within the state of California | |
| Coordinates: 36°25′1″N120°40′28″W / 36.41694°N 120.67444°WCoordinates: 36°25′1″N120°40′28″W / 36.41694°N 120.67444°W[1] | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| County | San Benito County |
| Elevation | 2,648 ft (807 m) |
| Time zone | UTC−8 (Pacific) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−7 (PDT) |
| Area code | 831 |
| FIPS code | 06-36182 |
| GNIS feature ID | 1660786 |
| Official name | New Idria Mine[2] |
| Reference no. | 324 |
New Idria Poker Run Results
New Idria was an unincorporated town in San Benito County, California. It was named after the New Idria Mercury Mine, which closed in 1972, resulting in a ghost town.
Geography[edit]
The area is inside Area code 831. It is included in the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District and the Panoche Elementary School District.[3]San Benito Mountain, elevation 5,241 feet (1,597 m), is located 3.6 miles (5.8 km) southeast. The nearest city is King City along U.S. Route 101.
The New Idria Mercury Mine was named in honor of the world's then second largest quicksilver mine in what was then Idria, Austria, now Idrija, Slovenia; (Slovene pronunciation [ĭdrija], California English pronunciation [īdria].)[4] The town grew to support the mining operations, but the mine closed in the 1970s. The town is currently an abandoned ghost town with more than 100 standing buildings, though vandalism has contributed to their deterioration in recent years. According to the US Geological Survey, both Idria (primary) and New Idria (variant) are recognized for federal use in describing the community.[1]
History[edit]
The community was established to support the mine, which mainly extracted mercury, since cinnabar was abundant in the local rock formations. Mercury mining at the location began in 1854. At one time, the New Idria mines were America's second most productive mines, with the New Almaden mines in the vicinity of San Jose, about 82 miles (132 km) northwest, being the first.[5]
The discovery of mercury ore at New Idria came soon after the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills, which began the California gold rush. At that time, mercury was important in extracting gold from gold ore. Before the New Idria and New Almaden Quicksilver Mines, the mercury came almost exclusively from Europe.[5]
The New Idria Mining Company was formed soon after the discovery of cinnabar (quicksilver ore) in the southern Diablo Range of central California in 1854. The town of New Idria began around 1857 and about 300 men were employed at the mine by 1861. The first school opened in 1867 and the New Idria Post Office opened in 1869, with Edward A. Morse as the first postmaster.[6] In 1894, the New Idria Post Office dropped the word 'New' and the town become known as Idria.[7] The New Idria Quicksilver Mining Company closed in 1972 and the town has since become a ghost town.[5]
New Idria is a California Historical Landmark (#324)[2][5] and home of the world’s first Gould Rotary Furnace, which revolutionized ore processing technology worldwide.[8]
On July 30, 2010, a fire destroyed 13 buildings on the north side of town.[9]
- Superfund Site
In 2011, New Idria was re-listed as a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site, owing to unchecked mercury run-off and contamination.[10] As of June, 2012, the entire section of the former town site on the south side of New Idria/Clear Creek road is fenced-off.
Environmental concerns in the area[edit]
New Idria Poker Run Game
The New Idria Mercury Mine was initially investigated in the 1990s by the EPA, for possible inclusion on the EPA's National Priorities List, but the site did not rank high enough at that time to be listed. A site reassessment was begun in 2002, and an expanded site assessment begun in 2009, which was concluded in October 2010.[11] In March 2011, the EPA proposed New Idria to its National Priority List.[12] Elevated levels of mercury were found downstream of the town, as well as significant levels of mercury and other heavy metals found within tailings piles on the site. The region has a long history of mining, with asbestos and chromium being mined in addition to mercury; the EPA's 2004 Risk Assessment for the nearby Clear Creek Management Area identified 86 separate abandoned mines in the vicinity.[13]The natural rock formations in the area have been shedding asbestos-rich debris into stream valleys for millions of years[14] The average New Idria rock contains 5-15% by volume short fiber asbestos.[14] The 2010 edition of Rand McNally's The Road Atlas labels the area immediately south of New Idria as an 'Asbestos Hazard Area'.
Mineral collecting[edit]
The New Idria Mining District is known for its abundance of rare minerals such as benitoite, named after the San Benito River. Gem quality benitoite is only found in this area of the world. New Idria is also home to serpentinite rock. Many thousands of tectonic events acting on the serpentinite have produced extensive deposits of short-fiber asbestos.[14]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
New Idria Poker Runs
- ^ abc'Idria'. Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
- ^ ab'New Idria Mine'. Office of Historic Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved 2012-10-11.
- ^Area Code and school information was derived from US Department of Education files.
- ^'How do you pronounce Idria'. Archived from the original on 2006-08-21. Retrieved 2006-09-24.
- ^ abcd'New Idria'. Archived from the original on 2005-10-24. Retrieved 2005-07-28.
- ^Salley, Harold E. (1991) History of California Post Offices, 1849-1990, p. 99. The Depot, ISBN0-943645-27-1
- ^'The New Idria Time Line'. Archived from the original on 2010-04-01. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
- ^'Gould Rotary Furnace'. Archived from the original on 2007-09-26. Retrieved 2007-05-06.
- ^[1][dead link]
- ^Historic 'New Idria' listed as Superfund site, Thursday, September 15, 2011, KGO TV, San Francisco
- ^'New Idria superfund status at U.S. EPA'. Cfpub.epa.gov.
- ^'EPA – New Idria Mercury Mine'. Epa.gov.
- ^'Search for Superfund Sites Where You Live'. Epa.gov. September 4, 2015.
- ^ abcRoss, M (2003). 'History of asbestos discovery and use and asbestos related disease in context with the occurrence of asbestos within ophiolite complexes.' Geological Society of America, special paper 373
External links[edit]
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to New Idria. |
- 'New Idria Historical Preservation Project'. Archived from the original on December 8, 2016.