When the Hearts round finally winds down, there’s a combination of calculation and dread as you look at pile of tricks left over. One person will wind up with Queen of Spades; someone else may snag Jack of Diamonds. In traditional Hearts play, that Jack is simply a card. But under many house rules, it … Read more
Your partner bid seven, and there are eight tricks staring at you in the hand. One more is all it takes to send your team across the line. But you have to deal with those bag carries from previous deals and now it’s getting hazy. A hundred point penalty looms large. This is no easy … Read more
When someone sets their book down on the table, everyone gets quiet. That’s how addicting Hand and Foot is. It forces you to build up your points in secret yet try to get rid of your card. Meanwhile, you pretend that your hand doesn’t have any deadwood. It’s a mathematical pressure cooker with hidden intentions … Read more
You hear it at the card table. Someone slams their cards down and the table goes quiet. That’s the cue in gin rummy; the hand is over and now comes the math. This is where arithmetic meets skill, and a basic rule misinterpretation can transform a winning hand into a costly embarrassment. There’s no need … Read more
Scoring is simple in most card games; add up the points at the end of each round. But with Samba Canasta, you have to manage your points carefuly. One minute you’re sitting pretty with a few hundred points, and the next, a natural canasta changes table flow for a massive five-hundred point swing. The instability … Read more
The math behind canasta scoring will get people arguing. There’s so much to keep up with: meld values, opening minimums, wild card limits. While playing, you has seven cards in your hand and you’re trying to figure out all that while also taking into account joker deductions for any unmelded card left at the end … Read more
When you have a twenty-one card hand and see that it’s not shaping up properly, don’t panic. Your gut instinct told you something else would of been on the table. So there are all these ranks and suits in a mess, and you’re wondering, “Is this really a sequence or am I just imagining things?” … Read more
