5-handed pinochle

Several generations ago my family invented a version of pinochle that allows 5 players to play, and is won individually (not as a team). I think it speaks to our competitive nature that this is one of our favorite card games whenever we get at least 5 family members together.

At a family reunion this summer I played it a bit, and decided to write down the rules so I don't forget the next time I play... one time we tried to remember them after a long break, and we got it all wrong.

I still remember very distinctly the summer I learned to play this game. My cousin and great-aunt were visiting from the East Coast. After learning the rules and such, we started getting competitive. I remember being dealt an outstanding hand, outbidding my great-aunt (who was a legendary high bidder) with a bid of 72... and I managed to make it. It was a high point of my adolescence, for sure.

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5 players
2 pinochle decks, remove the 9s.
Card hierarchy is A, 10, K, Q, J

All the cards are dealt to the players (often in batches of 3 at a time), leaving 5 cards untouched in the middle of the table (which are supposed to be dealt randomly during dealing, and never the last 5 cards). This is the "widow" and the high bidder gets these cards.

The total number of counters in the deck is 50 (counters = A, 10, K), including 2 points for taking the last trick.

One round of bidding starts at 40. If no one bids, then the dealer is the "bidder", and has effectively bid 40 points.

The highest bidder names one suit to be trump. The next person around the table, to the bidder's left, who has the Ace of trump, is his or her partner. If no one has an Ace, then it's the next person with the 10. The remaining three people then become the "other" team.

The high bidder then picks up the cards in the widow and incorporates them into his or her hand. This ability to get 5 extra cards has often driven people to bid too high and pay later!

At this point everyone lays down their "meld". The points gained here are added to the total number of counters taken during play.

Meld points:
Marriage (K, Q of same suit) = 2
Marriage in trump = 4
Pinochle (J of diamonds + Q of spades) = 4
Jacks in all four suits ("40 Jacks") = 4
Queens in all four suits ("60 Queens") = 6
Kings in all four suits ("80 Kings")= 8
Aces in all four suits ("100 Aces") = 10
A, K, Q, J in all four suits ("Roundhouse") = 28 (?)
Run (A, 10, K, Q, J) - trump only = 15

It should be noted that I learned how to play with "Shore rules" but in other branches of the family, there are "Michigan rules". The main difference (that I can remember) is that for Michigan rules, a double pinochle (i.e. 2 jacks of diamonds and 2 queens of spades) is 20 points, whereas in Shore rules it's 8 (2x 4). This nearly caused an incident this summer, but was thankfully ameliorated by the person with the double pinochle being outbid.

After playing all the meld and counting it up, the high bidder discards 5 cards (and must disclose to the other players if he or she discards any trump cards). If the high bidder has an amazing hand and could meld all their cards without leaving at least 5 out, then he or she has to remove some meld in order to discard. Then the high bidder leads, and must lead in the trump suit.

The play proceeds as standard trick/trump games go. The person who plays the highest card of the suit led takes the trick and leads the card for the next round. Play proceeds in a standard clockwise direction. If someone no longer has any cards of the suit led, they must play trump. If more than one person must trump, the second person must beat the first person's trump card, if they can. In the case of a trumped round, the person who played the highest card in the trump suit takes the trick and leads the next round. If a player is out of the suit led and is out of trump, he or she can play any card of any suit but has no chance of winning that round.

Play continues until all players are out of cards.

Each team then counts the number of "counters" they took during game play. These are A, 10, and K of any suit. The team that took the last trick gets an extra 2 points.

The counters are then added to the meld points. Each person on each team gets the points accrued by their team during that hand.

The bidding team must have beaten their bid (i.e. if they bid 50 points, then their meld + counters must be at least 50). If they do not make their bid, then the bid amount is SUBTRACTED from their overall score (ouch!).

The "other" team, made of the three non-bidders, must take at least one trick during the hand in order to "save their meld". If they do not take at least one trick, they do not get any points for the hand.

The game proceeds until one person reaches 240 points.

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The great thing about this game is that your partner is almost never the same person from hand to hand. Bidding can get out of control and then the unlucky person with the Ace of trump can end up being taken down by the high bidder... it's a game full of drama and strategy.

Around Town

On the bus last week I spotted this gadget, which is part of the new Puget Sound transit smart card system, called ORCA. I initially assumed it was in the testing phase, but apparently they're already rolling it out everywhere! I wonder if the UW's UPass system will stay the same or if it will get incorporated into this new system.



Also, there's a brand new Starbucks on Westlake between Harrison and Thomas. Wish they'd been there when I worked in that neighborhood!

Another perk of finally graduating...

I happily received this email from United Airlines today:

Congratulations on graduating from college!

Thank you for sending us verification of your degree. We have credited your account with 10,000 bonus miles.

This makes the $6 I spent on an official transcript well worth the money. I wasn't sure they would accept my PhD as a "college degree" - seems so far away from what I consider "college". Those of you who have recently graduated should take advantage of this offer - you can find the details by clicking here.

Happy Halloween!

Comet Holmes

Comet Holmes
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

This evening I stepped out onto my balcony to check out the newest sky feature - Comet Holmes. Sure enough, it was easy to spot, and when I dragged my camera and tripod out there I managed to get a few nice shots! It's not quite as spectacular as Comet McNaught was back in January, but it's always fun to see new comets when they become visible in the night sky.
I remember going out into our backyard with my dad the last time Halley's Comet came by. I had expected some fast-moving blazing fireball in the sky - and so was considerably disappointed when the thing we were looking at was just a blurry blob that wasn't moving perceptibly. Since I was only 8 at the time, I hope you can understand my misconception. I'm glad that there have been other comets to entertain me in recent years, since I'll be 83 the next time Halley comes around.

Minimum Wage

Did you know that Washington State has the highest minimum wage in the US? It's currently $7.93/hour and will go up to $8.07/hour at the beginning of 2008.

This is good news for me because I may end up trying to find a part-time job in the near future while I conduct my more extensive career search for jobs in the biotech sector. I'm especially interested in finding a company that offers benefits to its part-time employees, as health insurance can be rather expensive (especially when one has zero income).

In other news, I've been told by my 2 readers that now that I'm unemployed I'm expected to be blogging more. Consider this a first effort with more to come.

No, really. I'm getting a little tired of this.

It's 1:50 am on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and I'm still at the lab.... It seems completely unlikely that I will be done with all that needs to be done by my last day of work (Friday 09/28/07). I still have an incubator full of cells (the biggest time suck of all), slides that need staining, slides that need counting, a manuscript to revise and return to my PI, other experiments that need tending, multitudes of frozen cells that need to be moved to the liquid nitrogen tank and recorded, and on top of all that I need to clear out my desk and bench and file cabinets to make way for the next person who'll be using them. And it would be nice if I could organize my samples and reagents that I'm leaving behind.

You might think that I'm a procrastinator and put all this off till the very end; on some level that's true, but there was also the issues of the cells not being ready this summer and I certainly had plenty of other things to do to keep myself busy. I feel like I've been going non-stop since about mid-July; that's about when I started to get back into the swing of things after defending my dissertation and finishing the revisions and then going to various family reunions in June.

Of course, one of the other major tasks I was supposed to be working on this summer was finding a job, and I've completely dropped that ball. I haven't even done anything job-related in about the last month. I should have been sending my resume out to companies all summer. I got some advice to take one afternoon per week to work on my job search, but I couldn't even manage to find that amount of time in my schedule. Therefore, as of Friday, I will be officially unemployed (and officially terrified at the prospect).

In the meantime, here's a nice video of some beating cells that I took tonight.

SER-iously.

Work is really, really, really kicking my butt right now. Seriously.

(With apologies for the Grey's Anatomy reference...)

SLU parking changes

Propaganda
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

The city of Seattle is implementing a new pay parking plan for the South Lake Union neighborhood. I saw several new parking meters and signage today, as well as these inspirational posters on every light pole. I'm sure it's no coincidence that they're appearing at the same time as the parking meters. The other posters have similar catchy phrases with people's names in them, encouraging the reader to commute using non-car transportation. I'm always in favor of alternate transportation, but I find this ad campaign a little cheesy since it's clearly meant to distract you from the other changes being made.

Two-way Westlake opens up

Two-way Westlake
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

They opened up the new southbound lanes of Westlake this weekend. There were very few cars traveling in that direction, but then again it was the evening rush hour again. Photo taken at Mercer and Westlake, facing south.