Tag: hearts

Card Games

So the other day, while playing rummy with the members of the in-law family, I figured why I suck so much at some card games despite having played them quite regularly when I was a kid. Back then, in family gatherings, it was common for the host to come up with a couple of packs of cards, and we would play either rummy or this game called donkey (some kind of variation of hearts is how I’ll describe it for those that don’t know it). Given how regularly we played it, I should have become rather good at either of them, which unfortunately is not the case.

Bridge was the first card game that I learnt “formally”, in the hostel blocks of IIT Madras. Soon after being explained the rules of the game, I was taught conventions, both in bidding and play. I was taught the math, the probabilities of various distributions and to make intelligent guesses. While I quickly became decently good at bridge, it didn’t help my game in any of the other card games that I’d learnt.

So while playing recently, I realized that I know little about the science of rummy. And then I realized the reason for it – we used to play with incomplete decks. The problem with old family-held packs of cards with which no “formal” games are played is that cards tend to go missing over the course of time (especially if there are kids around), and no one really bothers to check. And when you play with incomplete packs of cards, all the beautiful math and rules of probability go out of the window. And if you have learnt playing with such a pack of cards, it is unlikely you’d have figured out much math also.

Last night, while playing rummy with the wife, I tried my best to use math, to keep a careful note of discarded cards, the joker (for example, if seven of hearts had turned up as the joker card, that meant a six of hearts in hand was of less use than otherwise (we were playing with only one pack) ), mathematical probabilities of which cards are still available based on discards and stuff. Then, it turned out that there was too much luck involved in the distribution of cards, and I started missing the duplicate bridge games that we used to play back in IIT.

The wife has shown an inclination to learn bridge, and I’m trying to teach her. We’re also trying to learn poker (we’d bought this nice poker set in Sri Lanka last year but it remains unused since neither of us can play the game). Yeah, becoming really good at these card games is one of the aims of my “project thirty”.

“But she is a really nice person”

That is the reply I usually get when I tell someone that someone else is dumb, or is an imbecile or is boring. And now I think I have some insight into why people who are otherwise idiots or irritating or boring are also extremely nice people, with “big hearts”.

Basically I’ve found that whenever I’m low on confidence or self esteem I end up being more sensitive, both with respect to myself and others. I display greater empathy, I care more about how people would feel and react to things I would do, and my usual buffalo skin disappears and I get affected by any adverse comments or remarks or incidents. Actually, I’ve seen a two-way implication here, but again you need to remember that I’m extrapolating from one data point here. Back in 2001, I had received extensive feedback (from various parties) that I had become too arrogant and self-centered, and that I needed to make an effort to be nicer and more sensitive towards people. I did make that effort, too successfully I think, for though I consequently became more popular, I entered into a prolonged period of low self esteem. Anyway, I digress.

So, based on the one strong data point that I have, which is myself, I hypothesize that low self esteem leads to greater empathy. People who you are likely to normally consider to be “boring” or “stupid” are likely to know that people think of them as that, and are consequently more likely to have low self esteem. And going by my hypothesis, that means they are more sensitive, have greater empathy, and “have big hearts”. And so, the remark “but she is a really nice person” in the context I mentioned largely holds true.