It's in the cards

Had a wonderful evening last night playing penny poker with friends, but there was a large Janet sized hole at the table. She always loved those poker nights, not only for the conviviality but also because it gave her an opportunity to flash her ruthless competitor streak. Frankly, as much as everyone loved her, she came close to getting banned (well, not really, but she got threatened). Most of the guys played fairly "loose", as is usually the case in friendly games. You know, toss a nickle in to keep things going, most raises are in the neighborhood of a quarter. Not Janet. She played to win. She'd fold instantly on what couldn't win, raise the pot through the roof when she could, and bluff often and well enough that no one was really sure what she was up to. I know, I know, that's how one is supposed to play poker, but these were obstensibly friendly games. And to be honest, giggling and chanting "I win! I win!" while scooping up the pot didn't help matters.

Hey, at least she usually bought pizza with what she won.

Poker wasn't her only card game, although it was the only one she'd bet money at. She found blackjack boring, "because it is". Actually, she's right. Once you get good at the game, there's really only one response for each hand, with some minor variations based on card count. Janet was perfectly capable of card counting, she just found it about as exciting as accounting, and at the levels she was willing to bet, less profitable. About her only casino betting was one pull on a slot machine every time we visited my sister, back when she lived in Vegas. Janet would walk up to a likely looking machine, drop a dollar in, then call it quits for the rest of the trip. Janet being Janet, she often won, which got her the stink eye from some of the operantly conditioned slot machine fanatics diligently shoveling their pensions into the machines. I think it's a violation of gambling etiquette or some nonsense like that. Whatever, she had fun.

But really, Janet just liked to play cards. She was a huge solitaire buff, with real cards back in the day before she moved onto a few thousand computer variations (they're out there, if you look on sites like Jayisgames). And there were the various two person games we'd play together. When we met, she liked a two hand version of whist, which she'd learnt from her grandfather. It was called "Norwegian Whist", but later on when we looked up the rules to the game of that name, it didn't sound like the variation she could remember. She also was the primary play tester for my book on 17th century cards. I was okay with deciphering the rules from old manuscripts, but it took Janet to figure out the actual strategies. So in addition to the ever popular Gin Rummy, we'd fill the odd empty hour with games like Maw, All Fours and Noddy (a version of Cribbage without a crib).

And, doggone it all, she usually won. And gloated. But she was sooooooo cute when she did.