Evening star. [volume], July 27, 1941, Page 8, Image 81

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
in. or gin rummy, is the first
card game in ten years to be
come a real craze. Some say
the Hollywood movie colony started
the ball rolling, but points as distant
as Boston and Dallas. Milwaukee
and Miami, New York and New
Orleans claim to have cradled Amer
ica’s newest game boom.
But they're really all wrong, for the
game is far from new. I’ve played it
on and off ever since my hand was big
enough to hold ten cards — and my
father taught me the game.
It has taken hold all over the coun
try at this particular time because it
exactly fits the public temper of the
moment. To begin with, it's a cinch
to learn. Practically everybody who
plays cards at all knows some form of
rummy. And a rummy player can
learn gin in thirty seconds flat. But if
you've never played cards at all, you
can learn the game in two minutes, be
an expert in five! You can even stop
and listen to a news broadcast without
affecting the play in the slightest
That must be why the game has
A Game Is Reborn
caught the public fancy. You can
relax completely while you play it.
and heaven knows these are times
when a way of relaxing is worth its
weight in gold.
The general idea of the game is to
match most or all of your ten cards
into sets or sequences. If you’ve never
played gin or any other game of the
rummy family, take a few minutes off
to read the rules. They are printed on
Page 19, and there's nothing much to
them.
* * *
Now let's go. If you’re not dealt
a hand which is ready for a knock or
Good old Rummy, in new dress,
is taking the nation by storm
by Oswald Jacoby
Noted Bridge Expert
claim of gin, you must build the hand
up. The easiest way to get a sequence
is to save "close" cards and reject
"wide" cards. The seven and the nine
of spades, for example, are close cards;
the seven and the king are wide cards.
In general, the only card$ to save
are cards that actually touch each
other, such as the seven and eight
of the same suit. Then you sit tight
until either the six or the nine comes
along to give you a three card se
quence The trouble with saving the
seven and the nine is that only one
card — the eight — will help vou.
In trying to form sets, you save
any pair you happen to have. Com
mon sense tells you that it’s easier to
get three jacks if you already have a
pair to start with.
So the best way to build up your
hand is to save pairs and sequences —
and to discard unpaired or ‘‘wide’’
cards. And when you have a choice
between discards, get rid of the card
which counts more points. That re
duces the total point-count ol un
matched cards in your hand and cuts
your loss if your opponent knocks.
But don't forget that there’s an
——-1
other player across the table from you
— and that you'll probably stand a
better chance of beating him if instead i
of concentrating solely in building up 1
your own hand in the shortest possible (
time, you take time off to throw a lit
tle broken glass in his path
In other words, you can play a
"blocking game." You try to prevent
the other fellow from building up his
hand And you can do this simply by
not throwing down cards which he
needs.
How do you know what he needs.1'
The clearest tip-off (outside of a fast j
peek) comes when he picks up one of
your discards. If that card happens j
to be, say, the five of hearts, you know
he wants either fives or low hearts So
if you hold or pick up another five or )
low heart, you don’t discard it — you
save it, so he won’t get it
Unless you're playing against a real if
novice, you can be sure that any pick ,
from the discard pile completes a set
of three or more matched cards. No
experienced player picks up a discard i
just as a gamble, because a speculative |
pick seldom improves a hand, it wastes
a pick that might have been produc- /
live, and — worst of all — it warns f*
the enemy that you’re interested in J
certain cards. From then on you will i
have to pick all matching cards from
the deck; your opponent will hold on
to any that he gets.
Even if the other fellow doesn’t pick
up any discards, you can usually tell k
what he has—except at the beginning 1
of a deal. Suppose two kings are dis- J
carded; that tells you that the enemy
isn't saving kings
Get the idea? Look at your own
hand and study the discards — and
you can tell what the other fellow i;
not saving. Then by elimination you
can make a pretty good guess at what
he does hold. And if you're still in
doubt, choose a discard you are sure
he cannot use in preference to one that
he may be able to use
And that brings up the memory
feature of the game. According to the
original rules, only the last discard was
visible; the rest of the discard pile was
hidden by the top card. The player i
who could remember all the discards
had an advantage. He knew what
cards were still available for his own
matching up, and he had a better idea
of what his opponent was likely to
hold.
But the modem rules eliminate this J
memory feature. You’re allowed to
look through the discards as often as
you like. That’s why it’s possible to
look up from the game to talk with a
friend or listen to the radio You can
then go through the discards and
know just where you stood before the I
interruption.
That’s about all you need think
about when you play gin. The rest is a
matter of refinements and percentage
plays. If you can stand, a bit of
‘’expert’’ advice, here it is: Don’t go
for gin (ten matched cards). Go after
six or seven matched cards and knock
as soon as your unmatched cards
count ten or less.
One more problem may puzzle you:
what to do with the kibitzer. That’s
easy. Put him to work. Play the game
three-handed. No special rules are I
needed for that. You just pick in turn \
until there's a knock or gin. Then the
other two players can lay off on any
thing in sight
What if you have two kibitzers? If
you're real gin bugs, you can pair off
and play two games of gin. You can
even call one player in the other game
your partner, winning or losing on
your combined score rather than sepa
rately. Such a partnership doesn't
amount to very much; it’s still two
separate games.
But the best solution for taking care
of two kibitzers is to start a rubber
of bridge. It’s still the best game for
four players, and it’ll live through this
craze just as it has survived back
gammon and the rest of them.
Th* End
7-27-41
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