Gin rummy players have been called the largest coup therapy crowd in the world. Personally, I don’t believe they are curable. Unlike alcoholics, who repeatedly claim—just before they fall sprawling on the floor—”I can take the stuff or let it alone,” a gin player never makes such a strong assertion. Once addicted, he knows that he can’t kick the habit.
Gin players have penetrated and gained a foothold in every form of governmental, public, and private life. Physically, they are a congenial and unrecognizable group. You can’t stand in a crowd, stretch out your arms in any direction and fail to touch one of them. If they were a fifth column infiltrating our nation from a foreign power, the FBI would be powerless unless they knew the one infallible method of detection: riffle a pack ofplaying cards. This familiar sound, upon reaching their ears, causes a transformation that quickly separates them from other citizens. Yes, there is something special about a gin rummy player..
There is also something extra-special about the wife or husband of a gin rummy player. Otherwise, long, never ending lines would form in front of divorce courts as gin rummy addicted spouses stayed out later and later at night. Medals should be cast for those wives and husbands who bear the cross. Fortunately, many of them find a happy solution by taking up the game themselves.
Unless you’re playing to pick up a tab or the equivalent, gin is essentially a serious game. It’s like sitting in a session of the Supreme Court. One of the unwritten rules is to keep your conversation to a bare minimum. This is impossible to enforce. To deprive a player of grousing, grumbling, and complaining is akin to destroying personal liberty should he be losing. On the other hand, how can you keep a winner from telling jokes?
When comedian Phil Silvers sits down to play gin, kibitzers draw close, expecting to hear some choice ad libs. They seldom do. Silvers, one of the glibbest talkers on television, is blanketed by silence. He’s all concentration—which he should be— and has no time for bon most.
Silvers, along with entertainer Tony Martin, George Jesse, Milton Berle, George Raft, the Ritz Brothers, Joey Bishop, abetted by former Los Angeles Mayor Sam Forty, millionaire chain shoe store owner Harry Karl, plus other names that make the news, play at the Friars Club in Beverly Hills.
Here, in a plush setting governed by club rules, are some of the leading gin rummy luminaries in the United States, a statement that would be instantly disputed by thousands, due to the fact that few players of this game concede to anyone in skill.
Harry Ritz, a round-the-world gin expert, plays what I’d call a “cagey but consistent” game. He plays like an automaton whether he’s stuck a hundred points or is four to the good. A losing streak never frustrates him. For variation, he may pick up four cards that won’t match any of his sequences, if he has a bad hand. Behind his chair there’s often a whisper, “Harry plays a crazy game.” He’s crazy like the proverbial fox. Undoubtedly, Harry shows a neat profit through the years.
He has his own gin philosophy. He says, “A guy will claim, ‘I don’t know what it is, but I lose to you every time. I beat everybody else. Not you. You’re a jinx!’ “With gin players this complaint is predominant,” Harry contends. “There’s no such thing as a jinx. The one called ‘a jinx’ is simply a better player. But who will admit it? Surely not another gin player.”
Harry believes that if you lose a lot of pointsyou should jump right up and quit. “Just say, ‘I’m tired,’ or, ‘I’ve sprained my wrist dealing.’ Or, ‘I’ve got a cramp.’ Back off. Don’t give him a chance to beat you for any more. There’s always tomorrow and maybe a better run of cards. It’s ethical enough,” he maintains, “to quit in gin when you feel like it. In poker it’s a breach of etiquette.”
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It has some good tips in relation to gin rummy.