A comedian I follow on Twitter recently asked for
suggestions of board games he could play with his 6-year-old and 12-year-old. Since
he lives in England, I didn’t want to offer board games, which have different names
in different countries or flat-out don’t exist in some countries, so I
suggested a good old-fashioned deck of cards.
I grew up in San Antonio. Just me, my parents and my sister.
My relatives all lived in St. Louis or thereabouts. We would go to St. Louis
every year at Christmas, sometimes one other time. Living so far from your
grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins made you all strangers. There was one
big thing which changed my attitude from not wanting to spend time with these
strangers to sort of looking forward to it. That was cards.
These were not innocent card games. They were played for
money. It was gambling. And even at a very young age, I understood that I
wanted to win money. Naturally at some point I was given my seed gambling
money, but for a kid, that $1 in change was a gift, not a loan. And whatever I
won was mine.
To play a game, you had to contribute a nickel to the pot.
We didn’t call it a kitty, although I’d probably call it that now if I could
entice anyone to play. A nickel to play a game and then a penny for each time
you had to pass. When you drew a card, you could play it right away or keep it.
If you kept it, you were passing and had to pay. On some games the rule was set
that you had to keep drawing cards until you could play one. Each drawn card
was a penny.
The way the pay-to-play was structured, it allowed players
to sit out hands if they needed to go to the bathroom or check the mail or
something. And people could drop by during the game, play a few hands and then
leave without much disruption.
I had a little change purse filled with my change. Mostly
pennies, although you would get other coins as people used the money in the pot
to make change. Out of nickels but have a dime? Wait until someone else pays
and then take a nickel, put in the dime. Only stuck with a quarter? Maybe
another player could make change for you. There was no credit, but if you were
running short of pennies a kind grandma might spot you a couple to finish a
game. You owed those back.
The money was collected in a small dish, usually placed in
the middle of the table, to the side of the game play. Somewhere everyone could
reach it. I still look at small, useless dishes and think about what a good pot
they would make.
The change purse never fluctuated in value greatly. These were
low-stakes games. Whoever was dealing the cards got to pick the game. Deal goes
around the table. The dealer picks the game and can decided if the cards will
be cut or not. Player to the left of dealer goes first. Play goes around the
table clockwise. When you are down to one card, you knock. If not, you owe a
penny. A knock can be said as “knock” or you can hit the table with your knuckle.
Here are the games I distinctly remember:
Crazy 8s: Each player gets 8 cards (6 if more than 4 play). The
deck is put face down in the middle. The top car is turned as the discard pile.
Play goes around the table with each player trying to discard all of their cards.
They can play the same suit or number as the top card showing on the discard
pile. If they play an 8 (free to play any time), they can declare what they are
changing the suit to. If you can’t play you pick a card. If you can play the
drawn card, you do. And you avoid paying a penny. Or you pick cards until you
can play, paying a penny for each. First person out of cards wins.
Up and down Broadway
(different than up and down the river): Deal all the cards. Play goes around
the table. A 7 is required to start play. If you don’t have a 7 and have to
pass, you pay a penny. From each 7, the cards going up and down from it in
numerical order are played until one player runs out of cards. First person out
of cards wins.
Aces in the corner: Deal 7 cards. Put the stack of remaining
cards down and turn over four cards around it. Play goes around the table. You
can either play down on the original showing cards, or you can put an ace in
the corner. On the original showing cards, you have to play down and alternate
colors of suits. So you could play a jack of clubs on a queen of diamonds or
hearts, but not on a queen of spades or clubs. Cards are played up in matching
suits on the aces. If you can’t play, you can move something on the board to
avoid drawing a card. Like move a 2 from the original stacks to an ace in the
corner. If a whole original stack goes away you can play a king in its place.
I’m struggling to remember if we played other games for
money. There was some game we sometimes played which came with a huge table mat
with drawings of cards on it, indicating where you had to play cards and in
what combinations. I don’t remember what it was called. In high school, my
friends and I played a lot of cards. We didn’t play cards for money but we played
a lot of Spades and Pass the Crap. My parents loved to play bridge and I learned how from them, but we rarely played.
My favorite part of a good game of 2-player Spades is when
you deal the deck. The first person looks at the top card. If they want it, they
move the second card to the discard pile without looking at it. If they don’t
want it, they discard it and have to take the second card. Then the next player
does the same. They go in turns, each making a decision on two cards until each
player has 13 cards. This way they each have some limited knowledge about what
they’ve passed on, but don’t know for sure if the good cards are taken or if they’ve
been discarded. Anyway, I love that part.
By a very young age, although now I’d hate to speculate what
age it was, I was able to shuffle and bridge a deck of cards, deal them and do
the simple math of the money in the pot. It made the strangers in St. Louis a
lot less scary. It gave me something to look forward to and a little bag of
money to covetously count when I was sad. Overall, even though I think Scrabble,
Clue and other games are fun, everyone should be playing cards. For money.
