07 2017 The Nightly Gin Game\t\t<\/p>\n
The Nightly Gin Game
\nby Paul Robert Sanford<\/p>\n
Kristen and I play cards at the end of the evening.
\nAlways gin. We don\u2019t keep score. We talk about each hand.<\/p>\n
Gin is a lot like life.
\nKristen plays by hope and hunches as well as the odds.
\nAs much as possible I work out the math and play the \u201cbest\u201d card.
\nWe usually come out about even.<\/p>\n
When I win I always announce that it was because of either:
\nSuperior Play or
\nTremendous Luck.
\nKristen explains why she won –
\nShe Finally Got Her Card or
\nShe Made It Work or
\nThey Just All Came Together.<\/p>\n
Kristen likes to hold on until she gets gin.
\nI like to knock, go down with 9 in bunches and an extra card
\nto catch her with a load of points.
\nSometimes it backfires,
\nand she undercuts me,
\nbut I like the excitement.
\nI like to think I can tell what\u2019s in her hand by the way she picks up her cards.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I collect face cards just for the fun of shuffling them around
\nand making them work in different combinations.
\nKristen has an annoying habit of picking up the first card I lay down,
\nif it is a face card, particularly a king.
\nWe know each other well. <\/p>\n
We both marvel and enjoy
\nwhen either of us has a \u201cpretty hand\u201d
\nwith a long run, or some lovely pattern.<\/p>\n
We enjoy catching each other either with very few points or
\nA record number.
\nThe most points you can have without matching
\nis 98 points
\nwe\u2019ve had hands in the sixties and seventies and marveled and enjoyed.<\/p>\n
While Kristen shuffles I putter
\nor get a snack.
\nA couple of times I quickly watered my plants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
07 2017 The Nightly Gin Game The Nightly Gin Game by Paul Robert Sanford Kristen and I play cards at the end of the evening. Always gin. We don\u2019t keep score. We talk about each hand. Gin is a lot like life. Kristen plays by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":736,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/736"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35636,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35627\/revisions\/35636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}