Gin, But Not the Kind You Drink

Filed in archive Home Games on November 29, 2007

Being a loyal husband and doting father of two leaves internet poker as my variation of the card game that receives the majority of my play. Turn on the laptop as the kids are off to Dreamland, once, twice, ok please go back to bed daddy is check-raise someone right now and yes I'll make the nurse avatar smile if you promise to sleep.

At a certain time of the month, the "guys" are given reprieve from their husbandry and fatherly duties for an evening of cards, cigars, and too much Captain Morgan. Our guys night now generally starts at a tobacco shop near my place of residence in which I indulge in a nice Gurkha that will burn for a few hours while we sit around and argue why they didn't take Adrian Peterson before I snagged him in the fourth round of our Fantasy Football draft.

But, usually I peek behind the seats and boxes of exotic smokables to see if the usual card game is in swing. Luckily this time it was, so I got to play a little thinking poker before we hauled out my Christmas present from last year and played our usual $5 donkey poker tourneys. The game is one I'd never played, nor can find any reference to on the internet, but damn its fun and the element of bluffing is huge. A standard deck of 52 cards plus 6 jokers are used, to start the hand each player receives five cards face down. The first round a player may lay down their hand if the cards total 15 or less with each joker worth negative one towards the total, or if they have 49 or higher. If no one beats their total, one unit is given to the low hand from player, if the bettor is beat by anyone they pay one unit to each person in the hand.

After the first round the game is played like Gin Rummy where you can lay down runs of three or more in the same suit or three of a kind (or four) while picking up a card and discarding. Once you lay down your cards you must wait one rotation around the table to declare your hand as the lowest, if anyone plays on your hand like laying the fourth Jack to go with the three Jacks you played, then you are "blocked" from laying down that round and must wait for another round.

If you flip over your remaining card(s) then you must beat everyone at the table by having the lowest total and the same payouts occur as above. Holding one joker as your last card while two others hold two cards and not knowing if they have two jokers or representing two jokers brings in the bluffing of old school Stud games.

Try it out next time you're sick of "all hold em' all the time" as my friend Felicia would say.