Have you ever had a personal encounter with perfection?
Card games can (very) occasionally provide you with a “perfect” experience. Take cribbage, for instance. A “perfect” five-card hand in this game is very special, especially since it is literally a once-in-a-lifetime experience, for only a few people. Pat Pogreba, a three-year Sun City resident, had such a happy moment on October 10.
The odds against collecting such a hand are among the longest of any card game. Cribbage is a game for 2, 3, or 4 players. From 20 to 40 club members and guests play five two-person games each Wednesday.
Pat Pogreba with her perfect Cribbage hand. (Photo provided)
Six cards are dealt to each player, and each of them discards two of the six into a crib, or extra hand, which is scored by the dealer in alternating hands. The remaining cards of the deck are then split, or cut, by the non-dealer, and a card is selected to provide the fifth card for each player.
In the fifth and final game at the club on October 10, Carol Charpentier dealt Pogreba and herself six cards. Pogreba said later she was hoping for a good hand because she had won her previous four games and she wanted to win all five games for the day.
Pogreba casually picked up her six cards and got a shock. In her hand she held two obvious discards and the five of diamonds, five of hearts, the five of clubs, and the jack of spades. That was most of the ingredients for a ”perfect” hand. When the deck was cut, she got another shock, the “cut card” was the five of spades, for a total count of 29, the highest score of any one hand in cribbage.
“I felt great, because I had dealt the perfect hand, even though it was for someone else, and I cut the deck for the fifth card,” said Charpentier.
“We have had two perfect hands in our club’s history,” said Marie Frostman, club president. “The first one was several years ago. Most players will tell you that they have not seen such a hand in their lifetime of playing.”
“I was concentrating so hard on winning five games that I had to switch gears and think for awhile when I got these cards,” Pogreba said. “I joined the cribbage club when my husband and I came to Sun City in 2015 because I wanted to do something different and this is a very nice, friendly group. I like cribbage because you have to think about options, but not too hard. I also play Samba and Triple Play here.”
We are not perfect human beings, but once in a very great while we can glimpse perfection that comes to us accidentally.
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