Rag Land

Last night, after a couple hours of fun give and take Poker (I gave...they took), my pal Zhubin introduces me to a game of French origin. (Note: Before continuing on in this post let it suffice to say that I will attempt to spell the French word followed by a syllable by syllable pronunciation...enjoy). The game was called Bleutte (Bluh-Oat) and involved 7-Ace of all four suits. Now, it is similar to Spades in the same way that our governmental system is the same as the Chinese...we both have one and the similarities end there. It involves either going Atou (AH-Two) or Non (Non) and then winning tricks in which the J and 9 are high cards in the Atou set, but low in the Non. Then you can call Tiers (Tears...what the game produces) which is three cards in a row, or 4 of a kind, or five in a row. There are 162 points which includes a 10 point bonus for winning the last trick and then all scores are divided by ten except if you picked the atou suit and lost in which case you get nothing except for perhaps your annunce (An-unts) which is the three of a kind, etc. Now this all works except on the third tuesday in which case spades are mostly wild except when the full moon shines and the club bites the hearts in which case the diamonds win unless followed by the imperial seal of China and the Liberty Bell. Now if the Declaration of Sans atou happens before...well you get the point. Suffice to say that 1)It was a fun game 2)we played three games of it in four hours and 3)It is the most confusing game with the most rules of any game EVER!!!!! So if you have an hour (or ten) to spend ask Zhubin to tell you the rules...and then look at him with a look of utter confusion for the next week or so...Trust me...