The deal with cribbage

This time, nature has dealt a pretty decent hand to the Millard Cribbage League. The players can't complain about a winter night when they can splatter puddles instead of skidding into the parking lot at the American Legion.

Some evenings have been so bad, so snowy, that they had to cancel the weekly card fix — never mind the tradition, every Thursday for nine months of the year for over a decade. An icy night, like a bad hand, just has to be endured. A better one will come.

This night is a good one, though. Sixty-six players — men and women in their 20s to their 70s — are ready for a couple hours of low-tech, old-fashioned fun. They're here because they've promised to play, have paid their $20 dues for a chance to lay down “a five for 15,” to talk smack if necessary, to hang out again with friends they've made over years of playing cards. The chili dogs are hot. The beer is cold. The cards are dealt.

“We were dead last, last week,” says Jeff Davis, whose partner across the table is his younger brother Harold. That clearly was a case of cold cards, a run of bad hands, because the Davis brothers are guys in their 40s who know what they're doing — they were the No. 3 team last season. Tonight they're eager to make up some ground.

By chance, they're up against the previous week's top team, Helen Sahulka and Paul Santi, who began their partnership a few seasons ago when they happened to be paired as substitutes and hit it off.

“Yeah, we've both got a dirty mouth,” Helen says in a Polish-girl deadpan.

“Can't stand each other,” Paul shoots back, laughing.

“Two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, 16, wooo!” Helen says a minute later, toting up a hand any cribbage veteran would be proud to hold.

But the worm is turning. The shoe is sliding onto the other foot.

“Thirty-one and we're out,” announces the elder Davis, stabbing a peg into the final hole for a skunk — a victory so decisive the winner earns bonus points.

* * *

Cribbage is one of the oldest card games, invented in the 1600s, so the story goes, by a rich English rascal and gamester, John Suckling, who was no stranger to a sudden turn of cards. Knighted in 1630, he fell from the king's grace a decade later, caught conspiring to rescue a jailed friend from the Tower of London — truly a bad hand. Sir John fled to exile in Paris and killed himself a year later, at age 33. Cribbage is his legacy.

As card games go, it's midlevel in skill, not as intricate as bridge but not a no-brainer like Go Fish. Its hallmark is the board, essentially a scoresheet with holes and pegs. And there's math involved, at least a little. Some say its a good game for kids to learn their sums on.

It's also a very social game. There's no brooding over your cards and hiding under your hat, like the poker players on TV. You can't avoid interacting.

Points are scored both during a hand — as players take turns plunking down a card at a time, announcing the running sum and maneuvering to stay under 31 — and after the hand, when points are awarded for each player's pairs, straights, flushes, combinations that add up to 15, and such. Then there's the surprise, “the crib,” to which each player contributes one card at the outset. Ownership of the crib alternates between teams. On it rides the hope of striking a winning blow or staging a miracle comeback.

* * *

A social game, yes, that's the point, says Lisa Peterson, a talkative mother of two who took over management of the Millard league with her husband, Greg, six years ago. One of their innovations was the website (millardcribbage.com), where each week's results are posted— triumphs and humiliations.

Another innovation was the chili dogs, or sometimes it's sloppy joes, or tenderloin. Greg, the cook, says the meal is a boon to those who must drive straight from work to make it by game time.

Lisa — the one wearing the “If cribbage is just a game, then the Grand Canyon is just a hole in Arizona” T-shirt — serves as accountant and party hostess, checking scoresheets at night's end and making sure everyone finds the cake and peanuts. Sometimes she plays, partnering with her husband, but tonight son Alex, a Millard South senior, is subbing for her. He's the lone teenager, the one wearing a T-shirt with a faux necktie printed on it in a pattern of skulls.

This is not blood-sport cribbage, where players claim points their opponents fail to see. That's for that other cribbage league, the one in Lincoln, she says. “We help each other count.”

At stake are end-of-the-season prizes, for the first four places, for last place, for final scores that are quirky, such as all 8's — for anything, basically, to make sure all the dues money goes back out the door, Lisa says. No one is quitting his day job for this. The top take last season was $140.

A whoop and an explosion of guffaws rise above the general chatter.

“The alcohol's kicking in,” a player nearby says, mostly joking. It's a cheery crowd, not a rowdy one, mainly middle-agers who are laughing off work stress and will be driving themselves home tonight, not breaking the furniture.

The first few tables, the fastest players, are finishing now, handing Lisa their scoresheets. They're putting on their coats, walking out past the two “God Bless America” plaques and the flags at the front doors. They won't wait to see who won the night. They'll check the website tomorrow.

The brothers Davis are rolling. Jeff snaps down a nine to make a pair and a sum of 28. “Go,” say the three players after him, signaling they can't play without pushing the total over 31. Back to Jeff. He lays down a triumphant three, for 31 on the nose. Good for four points.

“Let's do that again,” is as far as he gloats.

Within moments, Paul and Helen, the top team just last week, have been skunked. Again. Paul sighs and quotes a pithy line from “Independence Day” about the nature of payback.

It'd take the elusive 29-hand, the holy grail of cribbagedom, to save this night. That's four fives and a jack of exactly the right suit. Highest score possible. A hole in one. The odds of drawing that are something like one in a half-million. A guy frames that hand if it's dealt to him.

“We've never had a 29,” not in over a decade of play, Lisa says. “We'd have to do something special.”

It is game over for Paul and Helen. Final tally for the night: 706, just above the humiliation level of 700. The mighty have fallen low.

“You can't take it too serious,” Helen says.

Right, says Lisa. Everyone gets bad cards sometimes. Gets skunked sometimes. Double-skunked, even, which is like having everyone forget your birthday and then it rains. One guy in the league, when things get that bad, stands up, walks all around the table and sits again to change his luck.

The Davis brothers have racked up 877, maybe enough to make them top dogs for the night, certainly a strong step back from last week's ignominy. The top score of the night would win them the pool, the informal pot that players can choose to chip into each week. Hey, they could find something to do with $56.

But they aren't waiting for the verdict. Got to get home. If you win, Lisa promises, I'll get the money to you next week.

She's checking the math as people hand in their scores, making sure they added right. Later she'll type the numbers onto the website. She'll keep up the routine January through April, then again during the second session of the year, August through December.

It's almost 9 p.m., and four players at a far table finish with a round of high-fives. Just two tables of the original 17 are still playing.

“Good luck with your doctor's appointment on Monday,” someone calls, heading for the door.

One of the last teams has turned in an 884, Lisa announces. That's enough to bump the Davis brothers out of the top spot.

Ah, well, they'll be back next Thursday, with the rest of the crowd. After all, wings are on the menu. People and fried chicken will take the chill off a winter night. Bad cards may turn to good, maybe even the fabled 29. Who knows?

Outside, the parking lot is still puddles, not ice. Sometimes you're on a roll.

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