Monday, 08 October 2007
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Let's Discuss The Rules Card Game
There are two versions of how gin rummy originated. One has the game invented by the Spanish, who named it Con Queen, which was changed by the English to Coon-Can, the slaiig version being more pronounceable. It spread to Mexico and like marijuana came across the border, where it proved to be a far orepopular and legal pastime.
The other claim—and the one generally accepted— is that the game was born at the Knickerbockers Whist Club in New York City, sired by Elwood T. Baker, and was first called “Baker’s Gin.” The name Gin was suggested by Mr. Baker’s son, Graham. The year was 1909.
In 1939, after a slow start, the game spread like a prairie wildfire throughout the nation, becoming an overnight craze and bursting into popularity that has never diminished. Nervous Hollywood movie moguls found it a relaxing tonic for frayed nerves, and on a clear night voices from private yachts anchored off Catalina could be heard crying, “I knock with three.”
Today the gin bug has bitten approximately 100 million American card players of all sizes, shapes, and ages. The bug—highly contagious—infects its victims with an incurable virus, producing a perpetual state of bliss and confidence so that every player believes he’s an expert. It is powerful enough to mesmerize strong men, and the formation of a Gin Rummy Anonymous Club would be necessary to effect a cure. Breaking the addiction is as difficult as breaking into Fort Knox.
Proof of the popularity of the game is demonstrated by the script change in the motion picture Gold finger, a James Bond thriller from the pen of Ian Fleming. In the Fleming book the arch villian Goldfinger is cheating at canasta by receiving information on his opponent’s hand through a receiving set disguised as a hearing aid, transmitted by his secretary who has a powerfultelescope trained on the cards.
Whoever the powers might be behind the adaptation of the book to the cinema, they decided to substitute gin rummy for canasta for reasons of audience appeal. That gin is a game of intensive concentration is perhaps best illuminated by an anecdote. This concerns a man who, playing for huge stakes, lost for six consecutive sessions. Thoroughly disgusted, he pushed back his chair, stood up and declared. “Good night. I’m going home. This house is unlucky for me and I’ll never play here again.” His opponent gently reminded him, “But this is your house.”
Anyone can play gin rummy. As in learning to drive a car, you can pick up the rudiments very quickly. But that doesn’t mean you’re ready to take a spin on the freeway. The ordinary player considers that he has graduated from gin rummy school once he knows the difference between knocking and ginning. He then proceeds boldly out into the competitive world of gin rummy, convinced he has the game down pat. Such a player is not playing gin rummy; he is playing at gin rummy. Like it or not, he’ll be getting lessons as long as he continues to play—but more often than necessary they’ll be costly lessons, in the form of trouncing at the table.
As you continue into the remainder of this book, you can make yourself not just a player but a winner. Study my principles of sound play and you can make your entrance—or re-entrance—into the big big world of gin rummy an auspicious and winning one.
If you’re a novice at the game, don’t be disheartened. Actually, you may have a slight advantage over the old-timers whose bad playing habits are deeply ingrained. You will have less to unlearn before starting off on the sure path to successful play. To play gin rummy you need two things: A regulation deck of fifty-two cards and an opponent. Both are simple to obtain.
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