FEBRUARY 20 TO 24, 2004: I went to visit Dad and check out his new apartment at Sun City Center. They provide three meals a day and seem to have a good policy of keeping tabs on their residents while still keeping their privacy, so what more could you ask for? The weather was simply ideal -- skies were sunny and blue, afternoons were pleasantly warm and balmy. We visited a couple of our Ritter's projects in the area and played a little golf as well. On Sunday morning , we went over to Lakeland to see the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Florida Southern College campus and buildings. I had been there once before a long time ago -- but I had not remembered a lot of it. On Monday, we went to try and get Dad enrolled in the VA James Halley facility up in Tampa so that he could get his meds thru their program. We were able to get this process started, but there were a couple of additional steps involved that he will have to take care of on his own -- hopefully with the assistance of others. We then drove over to St. Pete to check out the VA Bay Pines facility there. I liked it much better than the Tampa facility, but they have a 3 to 6 month waiting list so all he could do there was get his name on the list and wait. Monday night, I relearned how to play the card game "Hand and Foot."
Here are the directions if anyone else would like to try their skill and luck:
"Hand and Foot Card Game Directions for two people"
Needed: Three decks of cards including the jokers.
Shuffle all cards together.
Jokers and twos are wild.
Jokers count 50 points each.
Twos count 20 points each.
Aces count 20 points each.
Kings, queens, jacks, tens, nines and eights count 10 points each.
Seven through fours count 5 points each.
Threes have no points.
Red threes count 500 points against you if you are left holding them in either of your hands.
Cut the deck roughly in half and set aside half.
Deal out four hands of 12 cards each. The remaining cards become the draw pile.
Each person gets two hands each -- The Hand and the Foot. Each player picks up one of his two dealt hands. This is the "Hand"
The person who doesn't deal draws first.
There are four rounds to the game.
In the first round you had to have at least 90 points to lay down one or more melds.
A group of at least 3 of a kind constitutes a meld.
You can only have 2 wild cards per meld.
You are trying to make book which is at least seven cards in each book.
You need at least two red books and two black books before you can go out.
A red book has no wild cards. A black book needs to have at least one, but no more than two wild cards.
Each person takes a turn drawing two cards from the face down pile. Before his turn is over he has to discard one card.
The discard pile has to have at least seven cards on it before anyone player can pick it up.
The player picking up the top card has to pick up a total of seven cards from the discard pile.
Discarded "threes" freeze the discard pile. Meaning the other player cannot pick up any cards on his next turn.
Jokers and twos also freeze the discard pile in like manner.
A player must have at least a pair in order to pick up the top card (plus the following six cards) on the discard pile, or have melds of the same card already lain down on the board.
A player must have already laid down the minimum number of points in each round (90 points -- in the first round) before he can pick up a discard. Therefore, you cannot pickup a discard until you have met the minimum points requirement of the hand in the round.
The minimum required points needed to lay down in the first round is 90, the second round is 120, the third round is 140, the fourth round is 160.
A person must have lain down all the cards from his "Hand" hand and discard one before he can pick up his other hand, the "Foot" ready for play. If he can play all of the cards in the "Hand" without making a discard, he may then pick up the "Foot" hand and continue playing the "Foot" hand without having made a discard.
If you run out of draw cards during the round, just start using the other half of the deck that you set aside at the beginning.
Scoring:
The winner of the round is the person who goes out first (has no cards left in his hand) and has made at least two red and two black books. A person may go out by either discarding his last card or laying down four black threes without making a final discard.
Get a sheet of paper and pencil. Make a simple T-grid with the names of each player at the top. Below the grid, start entering the values of the particular round. Draw a horizontal line after each round.
In each round--this is how the scoring goes:
Winning Points go under the winner's name:
1. Winner receives all the points the opponent has left in his hand(s) yet to play. Remember: a red three in the loser's hand(s) counts 500 points for the winner! Add them up and write them down.
2. Winner receives 500 points for winning the round. Write it down.
3. Winner receives 500 points for each red book and 300 points for each black book. Write it down
4. Add up the points of the unbooked melds on the board and add that to the winner's score.
Opponent Points go under the loser's name:
1. Loser receives 500 points for each red book and 300 points for each black book. Write it down.
2. Add up the points of the unbooked melds on the board and add this to the loser's score.
Four rounds make a game. Again, refer to the minimun lay down point requirements above.
Add up all the points to declare an overall winner. The Winner collects $1 for each point more than the Loser has from the Loser -- just kidding.
If you play with three people you add one more deck. (4 total).
If you have four people, it is suggested that you play in teams, still with four decks (eight hands), but only two lay downs, so each partner plays on his team's laydowns.
I think that's all there is to it. It may sound a bit complicated at first, but after the first round or two, you'll start pick up on the rules and see the overall strategy involved. It's a pretty fun card game, and I hope you enjoy it!