Bird Poker Rules

BIRD POKER RULES V2.0 #BirdPokerRules


History...
Bird Poker was originally played by the beautiful +Lee Daniels and myself. On weekends Lee would post a photo of a bird and I would try to post the same bird in a better pose or somehow outdo her photo. Over the course of the evening we would post many photos trying to one up each other. A very important part of our game was trash talking and we entertained anyone that was following us with our comments.(so I hope) After playing for several weeks, others joined in the game and it became hard to keep up with everyone's great photos so the hashtag #BirdPoker was born. The trash talking is very limited now to the point of being almost polite (I do miss that part, Lee) and is only done between regular players of the game and not towards new people joining so we don't intimidate anyone.


Rules...
The Bird must be alive, in the wild, and photographed by you. No zoo photos. No dead Parakeets nailed to the perch (but it's not dead it's only sleeping)


Method of Play...
Anyone can join in the game at any time! There is always someone playing worldwide, 24 hours a day. New themes are posted every day around midnight EST.  Examples of themes we have used are... Raptors, Owls, Woodpeckers, backyard birds, etc. I would suggest watching the game to see how it progresses before joining so you post the right kind of bird. If it is a new game please open low instead of opening with an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (IBW) as that would be a very short game. The idea is to slowly raise the quality of play keeping everyone in for as long as possible. As the game plays on some people will drop out due to having no photos left or having to leave the game for some reason. No winner is ever announced and there are no prizes. Spectators are welcome to watch.

The easiest way to follow BirdPoker is to enter #BirdPoker into the search bar in Google+ or just click #BirdPoker anywhere you see it in a post. Once you figure out what the day's theme is add it to the search bar. This will eliminate a lot of old posts that have been reshared. 
Example... #BirdPoker Shorebirds


I made the new hashtag #BirdPokerRules so we could point newcomers to this page and the rules. Please don't use this hashtag for anything else.


Warning: This game is highly addictive and a totally enjoyable waste of time!