Information is knowledge and knowledge is power, power is control. Everybody wants control. When comes the time and you have a fleet of card counters travelling up and down the country. You set up the venues-send them out and you take your cut. Now that is power eh? Not that anyone ever does this but we can aspire to be above and beyond our imagination. There are things which would make this dream somewhat easier!

I’ve heard of something which we can use to our advantage. There are anywhere between 20-25 million road users a day in the UK, now lets say your empire has caught up to your imagination maybe even surpassed it. You have 70 drivers. That’s right 70, don’t ask me why not 60 or 80-70 drivers sounds right. If you had a Vehicle tracking system you’d be able to know where and what your drivers are up to. Not only that you could streamline your entire process.

Streamlining is the key-in order to streamline you’ll need the information and this comes from the vehicle tracking system which gives you the knowledge-stemmed from that comes power and that’s what we’re about. This information which tracks where vehicles are, routes they’re taking, average speed, mileage, fuel consumption. A quick interpretation of this data accumulated over a period of time would show trends. Now’s time to play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses but lest we not forget streamline for power.

A sure bet if you’re a gambler is the snooker- got to love it.

If you’re a fan of the snooker then i’ve got a tip for you.

Follow a player called Mark Selby-aka the ‘The Jester from Leicester’.

This whipper-snapper is playing well so far and eased himself through the econd round of the world championships last week with a comfortable 10-6 win over Ricky Walden.

Currently Selby is stepping to John Higgins beat.

The game opening frames yesterday say Selby smash 3 frames in whilst Higgins sat down and flooded himself with the jug of water.

Higgins aswered right back with 3 frame winning breaks forcing Selby into the back seat.

Continued in Pt.2

So now you think you can rummy me do you. So i’m going yo ask you the question-

Do you feel lucky……. well do you…….? Punk!

I’m going to answer the question for you and say that even if you are feeling lucky-i’ve been playing for about 10 years and i’ve only ever made it twice and seen one done 4 times-i’ve played many a good player and still not seen frequent rummying-plainly due to the problem that it can take rather long to win. In this rather long time the chances are you will probably loose-but its worth a go if you fancy our chances.

One more thing to remember-you can only win when it is your turn-so if you realise that you have won already but your go has passed-you must wait until it comes round to you again. If this happens but someone else wins before it gets back to you-you will accrew 100 points for holding a winning hand and not declaring winner-this is done due to the fact that people started playing in league with each other-holding fire so someone else can win by default.

So you’re an expert now and know how to keep your points nice and low eh. Well now i’m about to tell you that you’re wrong-if you have read this far and think you’re ‘big-time’, think again. You’re actually ‘medium-time’, I would have said ‘small-time’ but that would be quite harsh considering you’ve probably already read about 1000 words trying to understand this nonsensical game of cards and jokes.

The reason for you not being ‘big-time’ is this. If any player at any point in the game whilst currently below 101 points manages to win a round with a suited run of all 10 cards, he/she will win the match outright, regardless of who is on the least points. This is called ‘the RUMMY’. This run can only contain a maximum of 1 joker as too unless used as a suited running card. e.g.

Win with no jokers

4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, Js, Qs, Ks

Win with 1 joker (joker is ALL 7′s)

4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, 7d, Qs, Ks

Win with 2 jokers (joker is ALL 7′s)

4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, 7d, Qs, Ks

Notice how the rummy has still been achieved here; it is because the joker card was rendered useless as the 7 of spades was used in a suited run correctly.

If you win with 3 jokers in an attempted rummy-its not classed as a rummy but just a normal win.

Continued in Pt 8

The points system works on an cumilative total, each player totals up thier points after each round, if you win you get 0 points for that round. It is possible to loose a round and still carry 0 points for that round, only if you have 2 runs of 5 cards. Although you cannot win with 2 runs of 5. Your points are 0 as out of all your cards none of them are outside a run or set. e.g. 2s,3s,4s,5s,6s 4h,5h,6h,7h,8h.

So its not all about winning the rounds, its about keeping your points as low as possible so the strategy is to win any round as soon as possible so is not possible for other players cannot keep thier points low and will exit the game if thier cumaltive total exceeds 101 points.

You could effectively win the game without winning any rounds, for example if you only carry 2 points through after each round, after 10 rounds of loosing, you will only be on 20 points and liklyness is the other players will be beating each other and will both exceed 101 points with you remaining in the game and declared winner.

Continued in Pt7

So now its total up time, the cards that you have in your hand at the point where player 1 decided to win are determined by what complete sets you have made already. Anything that is in a set is omitted as points to add to the tally. E.g. you lost a round and the cards in your hand looked like this As,2s,3s Jh,Js,Kd  7c,8c,9c, Kc.

The points which you would have is 40. This 40 points has come from the KingDiamonds and KingClubs and the two Jacks as you have a set Ace, 2, 3 those points are omitted, the 7, 8, and 9 are a set so they are also omitted, but the two jacks and two kings count as 10 points each. Only if a king or a jack came along you would have had a set of kings or jacks and your points would have only been 10.

One thing to remember about the points is that if your loosing hand does not contain a completed running suit e.g. 4s, 5s, 6s THE WHOLE HAND COUNTS so the value of all 10 cards currently in your loosing hand will count towards your tally of points. I have seen people exit the game after two rounds as they were collecting high cards with no running suit. You can hold a maximum of 100 points in your hand at any one time. So with this in mind-make sure the first thing you do is get a run-even if you have to use a joker to make it, make it as its going to save you points.

continued in Pt 6

The game is now ready to begin. It starts by the player who has been nominated to go first will select a card that he/she is most useless to thier cards that they have been dealt and will place it on the table, face up so all players can see the card and the player immidiately to the left the player who has just discarded a card has a chance to collect this card or select from the deck.

Player  number 2 can now go, this player has 2 options, either select the card which has just been discarded by the previous player or select a card from the deck which no player will know what it is. Whichever choice the player makes he/she must discard one card from thier selection of now 11 cards so that the number of cards in their hand at any one time is 10.

The game continues in this fashion until one player gains a hand that contains set of 4, 3 and 3 (one set includes a suited run).

There are some more rules to the game which must be explained now.

The points system-the idea is to get all other players beyond 101 points while you remain under. The amount of points are calculated from a player looses a round-so in this 3 player game, player 1 wins the round with a set of 4,3,3 correctly. The other players must now total up the value of all thier cards which are not included in a set at the point when player 1 declared victory.

Continued in Pt5

The ‘joker’ card is a wildcard and can be used in a hand and can act as any card you want it to be. The joker is drawn from the top of the deck after each player has received 10 cards. e.g. each player is dealt 10 cards and card number 31 is 5s. This would mean that all 5′s drawn from the deck or which are in a players hand are ‘jokers’. The benefit of the joker is that it can make your hand without you needing a particular card so you could be collecting Jacks, if you have 2 jacks Js, Jh you could use the 5 that you had (regardless of suit) to act as a Jack. So a winning hand could comprise of a maximum of 3 ‘jokers’ as the selected joker remains under the deck but visible to all players and this card is out of the game, it cannot be collected or used.

Jh, Js, 5d 7c, 8c, 9c, 5h Kd, Kh, 5c

The game is played where by each player is dealt 10 cards, a player is nominated to have the first go-usually this is to the left of the dealer, this player gets an 11th card. In our 3 player scenario the player who goes first gets the 32nd card, 10 to each player makes 30, 1 card selected as a joker and final card to the player nominated as first to go.

So now lets get down to it, the game environment will be explaining is played with one deck of cards and 3 players.

Continued in Pt 4

With that said, and it cannot be stressed enough that one of your sets must contain a suited run, all of your sets can be suited runs if you want.

You cannot win with 2 sets of 5 cards, i’ve seen this attempt before where someone smahes thier cards down on the table,…… crisps, dips and bless’d be thy chicken go flying into the air. He or she shouts “WINNER,… we have…. a… WINNER!” only to be told like a child to sit down and think about what they have just done. Thats right, they got told to sit down and ponder what they have done to the sacred game of 10 card rummy with jokers-in the olden days you could be punished quite severly for acting in such a manner, attempting to manuver within the given situation with a falsifiaction, a fabrication, a pharce of a winning hand in this game. A punishment may include; removal of privilages for all chicken flavoured food, any biscotti which may happen to be within the vacinity of the gaming table will be moved out of reach of the offending player, and so on….

This being said, i’m a lot happier in the knowledge that if you are aware of the above, then one is less likley to be attempting such a nonsense.

Continued in Pt 3

This is a card game which requires your wit alongside your ability to count some cards.
This game is rummy with the rules slightly different from what you may know already-i don’t know where these rules originated from but the game has come about, it exists and it works! I’ve been playing for about 10 years now and I must say that i’m quite good. If your reading this either get back to work, stop dreaming about being an amazing card player or thinking you’re going to beat me. I’m afraid you don’t have the quality at this level to compete.

The Rules;

The game is designed for 2 – 8 or more players – any more than 4 players requires two packs of cards.

The aim of the game is for 1 player to remain inside of 101 points whist the rest go over to win the match.

To win a round 1 player must achieve 3 sets of cards totaling 10 cards in a particular fashion.

A=Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J=Jack, Q=Queen K=King, h=hearts, d=diamonds, c=clubs s=spades
so Ah = Ace of hearts

A set of 3 – can contain 3 of the same value card e.g. Qh, Qd, Qc or suited run e.g. 4s, 5s, 6s
A set of 3 – can contain 3 of the same value card e.g. Ks, Kd, Kh or suited run e.g. 10s, 5s, 6s
A set of 4 – can conain 4 of the same value card e.g. Jh, Jd, Jc, Js or suited run e.g. As, 2s, 3s, 4s

One of the sets MUST contain a suited run. you CANNOT have 3 sets of a collection of similar value cards.

Rules continue in pt 2