uncle jayums sorts it out

 (the problem page where you the readers get to offer your own solutions to daily life conundrums tackled by our resident expert in eveything)

Evening in the heartland.

The air dry and humid.

I wandered into a neighbour's house.

A raucous enough group met my gaze.

There was a game of cards in session with all generations taking part: a Granny who happens to be a Bridge Grand Master but is not too proud to play to win with the kiddies; her daughter who is a scientist and has inherited the Granny's competitiveness gene, also a teenager, the teenagers parents who are a banker and social worker respectively, and a bunch of younger kids for whose entertainment at least theoretically, the game was being played.

The game in case you know it, was Knock, where each player gets seven cards and is allowed to lay down their cards by turns going round the table one by one.

The card you lay down must be the same suit, diamonds say or clubs or whatever the suit is, of the last card that was played.

The exception here is that if you have a card with the same number or court face as a card that has just been played, you can play it even if it is a different suit. That is to say, you can play a Ten of Hearts on a Ten of Spades, or a Three of Diamonds on a Three of Clubs, or a Queen of Hearts on a Queen of Spades.

If you can't play a card, you must pick up one.

If you have a Seven or a Jack you don't have to follow suit, as these cards are changers and allow you to nominate a new suit.

If someone next to you plays a Two, you have to pick up two cards unless you have a two. If you have a Two and play it on a two played before you, the player after you has to pick up four cards unless he has a two in which case the player after him has to pick up six cards and so on.

If someone plays an Eight, the player after them misses a turn.

The object of the game is to lay down all your cards.

If you have only two cards left, and you are about to lay one down, you must say: "Knock knock."

Failure to do this means you pick up two cards.

Each card has a numerical value so when a player gets rid of all his cards, the others tot up the value of the cards they have been stuck with.

If your points total exceeds a hundred you are out.

When I got there a controversy was in sway.

It emerged that the teenager, the banker, the social worker, and the younger kids had all been knocked out.

Only the Bridge Grand Master (the Granny) and the Scientist (mother of the little kids) were still in the running.

The controversy emerged arising from a rule that did not exist when I played Knock.

The rule I was not familiar with stipulated that if a person plays an Ace, the direction of play around the table immediately reverses. If play was going clockwise, it now goes anti clockwise. A player on whom an Ace is played will thus miss a go as when an Eight is played.

In the opening mooments of what looked like being the final game, the Scientist had now played two Eights in a row on the Bridge Grand Master. Then without pause she had played two Aces and maintained that this meant the Bridge Grand Master should miss her first four goes in what was likely to be the final round.

The Bridge Grand Master's tally was 85 points and the scientist stood at 75. Whoever's cumulative total reached the hundred as calculated on card values left in their hands in this round would be the loser.

The Bridge Grand Master was arguing that Aces merely change the direction of play and do not cause anyone to miss a go in the way an Eight does.

The Scientist maintained that changing the direction of play in a two man game meant the other player missed a go.

A hush fell on the raucous assembly as the Granny and her daughter argued the toss.

So gentle travellers of the internet what would you advise, if you were Uncle Jayums?

The playing of two Eights causing the Granny to miss two turns, one after the other is perfectly fine. But do Aces which formally change the dirction of play amount to Eights or do they merely mean that the direction of play, right to left say, which is purely notional in a two man game, switiches to left to right, and no turn is missed?

Take a minute to ponder this vital issue before I share my ruling...

(******Intermission*******

The music from the Virginian plays.

Ner ner nerdle ner ner.

Nerdle ner

Nerdle ner

Nerdle nerdle ner ner

Ner ner ner

Ner ner ner ner ner

Nerdle nerdle ner

Nerdle nerdle ner

Nerdle ner ner

Nerrrrrrrrrrrrr

Nerdle ner ner

Nerrrrrrrrrrrr"

********End of Intermission*******)

 

And we're back.

Heelers Judgement:

My decision was that all an Ace did was to notionally change the direction of play around the table. It did not formally cause a player to miss a go as an Eight does although with more than two people playing, missing a turn would result. In a two player game the notion of changing the direction of play is irrelevant. Therefore the Ace should have no effect.

And what did the players actually decide?

They decided to ignore my judgement and to consider that the Ace caused a missed turn for the Bridge Grand Master. The Scientist therefore got four extra chances to lay down cards. The Bridge Grand Master still won the game, although the scientist was not over the hundred total at the end of that round and two more rounds were necessary before the game concluded with the Bridge Grand Master the clear winner.

The moral of the story:

They rear Grannies tough in the heartland.