Cards

We've started playing card games! Seems weird, in retrospect, that we haven't been doing that all along. Sherry (aka Grandma) was a big contract bridge player before she moved to Portland. She never found a group to play with here in Stumptown. So recently we started playing Russian Bank. Mom and I played it a few times, then I taught it to Suzanne, who took to it like a carp to a pond. It's pretty fun, especially if you have some luck on your side.

At the coast this past weekend, we had a four person Russian Bank tournament, so Barb and Elizabeth had to learn. Grandma won the tournament handily. She has good luck with cards. (The prize, by the way, was a souvenir. After I foolishly announced that, both children were crazy to win, and kept insisting that if the other child won they [the non-winner] would be "owed" a souvenir as well. So thank God Sherry won the tournament. She didn't want a souvenir. Kids got zero souvenirs that weren't picked off the sand of the beach.)

Russian Bank is good... but it's more luck than strategy. Hoyle says that it's not a "game" so much as a "double solitaire."

I know that because Ken and Ted sent us the According to Hoyle book, and from it (wanting to push beyond Russian Bank), Grandma and I learned (or re-learned) Gin Rummy. That's a simple-but-fun game that I think we'll have many hours of enjoyment playing.

If anyone knows good 2-person card games, let me know.

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