Harley incentive in poker championship
Harley incentive in poker championship
By ALLAN TINKER
She may win a bike, not a ten-speed, but a Harley Davidson! Cheryl Helm is the local winner, the “Bar Champ,” placing fourth in the Bismarck regional, in the Little Poker League competitions in North Dakota.
Helm has watched poker on television “forever,” she smiled, at least five years. When Confederate Bar and Café owners Brian Belile brought the poker game to her attention, she said “Sure,” she would play.
The other “boys” in the local bar champ games, some only playing on occasion were Aaron Pakome, Jerry Kluck, Dwight Helm, Dean Morley, DuWayne Dockter, Kerry Helm, Norman Boehm, Dennis Bertsch, Darrel Bertsch and Virgil Laib, Helm recalled. The top four got to go to the Bismarck tournament, held at “The Drink,” south of Kist Livestock.
In the Bismarck tournament, Helm stated she was one of about 10 women in the 32 players. She earned her place in the tournament with an all-ace hand, then the “Dead Man’s Hand,” aces and eights, got her into the regional playoff. The top five get to go to Argusville, she added. “I was nervous as heck,” she smiled.
Helm likes to play cards, and often plays “cutthroat” pinochle, a fast game of six cards to be upon, with no partners. “We play for fun,” she added.
She also enjoys gardening and fishing with her husband in hot weather, “No ice fishing” she insisted.
Helm is a graduate of Mc-Clusky High School, class of 1983. She is married to Kerry Helm, and has three daughters: Chrissie (Len) Brabandt and son Riley; Karrie Mae Werner, with her son Tyson Foley and her friend Brian Foley; and Amanda Werner, who is single and a front desk person at a hotel in Bismarck.
Raised in the McClusky area by parents Delilah and Ronald Reile, she is the oldest of the four siblings: Cheryl; Ronald, Jr., Blanchard; Val (Joe) Reule, Fargo; and Aaron, (Vickie).
Cheryl worked for CCB (Credit Collection Bureau); and as a bartender and waitress, then learned to cook at Helm’s Tavern, the former owner of what is now the Confederate Bar building.
