Playing Cards

My kids have gotten into playing cards now. They love playing Go Fish, Crazy 8s, 3 Up 3 Down, and War. It's actually a lot of fun to play with them but I wish I had more energy. For some reason, sitting on the couch with them playing cards induces a sleepiness I never knew I possessed. I think the most logical explanation is that I'm constantly "on alert" as an adult, so for me to sit down and relax allows my body to feel tired, hence the sleepiness. Reading books to them used to do the same thing to me, but now that both my children know how to read on their own, I haven't read a book to them...in a while. 

Having my children playing cards resurfaced an old memory I had from a card game my grandfather taught me. He would deal out the cards in a Solitaire style with seven wells. The first well only had one card face up. The second well had one card face down and one card face up. The third well would have two cards face down and one card face up. Once 7 wells were dealt out in this same pattern, the remaining cards in the deck were all dealt face up evenly distributed between wells 2-7.  

Game Set Up. 

The cards are then linked by number and suit in order. Whatever cards are underneath the card to be moved must follow the card as you move cards between the columns. Face down cards can only be flipped if the whole column of face up cards are moved to connect into a different column. For the photo above, some viable moves would be moving the 8 of spades from column 2 underneath the 9 of spades in column 3. You can also move the Jack of diamonds from column 6 underneath the Queen of diamonds in column 4. Both these moves would result in being able to flip a card from the wells in column 2 and 6. Once a column was empty, you could move Kings into their place, but the maximum number of columns was 7.

I never learned the name of this game. It might be a Chinese name. But I loved playing as a child. The winning percentage of this game is extremely low. By a completely random shuffle, the odds of winning were less than 10%.  

Because this game was so difficult, I would sometimes continue the game by moving Kings into extra columns just to see if I could win the game that way. If I won with extra columns, it was nice, but it didn't feel as special. For the games I was able to win playing according to the actual rules, I made a wish.  

No more moves.

 

The closest game to this one I've found is a card game called Scorpion. The initial deal and playing rules are the most similar I've seen to the one my grandfather taught me. 

I can play Scorpion online if I wanted

 

I taught this game to my daughter one day when she said she was bored. It's a little too much for her to handle right now, but I hope one day she can enjoy this card game by herself and have fond memories of playing cards. 

Wordle in Review

(Disclaimer: these are all past Wordles and do not include today's word)

So I got sucked into Wordle a few days after the New Year just like everyone else. It's actually been a really nice daily activity. It's also been a great bonding topic between one of my college friends. We are celebrating about 13 years of friendship this year :) I remember meeting her at lunch one day in the dining hall after a large lecture class. I liked her. She was like an older, smarter version of myself. She gave me rides to church during college and was my church buddy because very few people wanted to wake up for the 9 o'clock service. She let me cook at her apartment for a large event once when I volunteered to handle refreshments. She attended our wedding, and now she lives about 10 minutes from my in-laws. Wordle is another nice way to add to our friendship. 

I take a screenshot everyday, but I wanted to explore some more thought processes with the rest of the world. I know people post their scores and people are so impressed when someone can guess the word in two or three guesses. But let's be real, sometimes it's just luck. What's the actual thought process behind guessing? Let's take a look at some of mine....

This was the one day I was unable to guess the word. I was very frustrated. This was also the day after the word "tacit" so I was thinking along more posh lines. Rouse was a great word. It should have been the Wordle. Much more sophisticated than "other." "Error" was a good guess after rouse. "Oiler" put the three letters I already had in the correct spot. "Odder" was probably a bad guess, but hey, those double letters really trip me up. "Otter" was another guess at the double letters. Unfortunately, it was my last guess, so I did not solve the Wordle that day. I should have tried a word with more variation in letters like "other"....but hindsight.

I got pretty lucky on this one. Caulk just came to mind first when I saw it started with a "c" and ended with a "k" and had an "a" in the middle. I blame my renovation and homeowner experience. 

Look at how many times I had to guess "-der" before I got it right...

This was a fun Wordle. I guessed three words that were all moving forward in guessing technique AND they have a theme! I bet you've never guessed a Wordle and had all the words match together in a theme. 😂

After I'd guessed "prove" I really thought of the word "proxy" first, but I didn't guess it because I didn't think they would pick it as the word. Turns out I was actually right and wrong....since I decided to guess prowl first. I don't know why my mind went to "proxy" but it did. Should have trusted my gut. Just for that day. 

This is the only Wordle I've solved in two guesses. I don't know how I got so lucky. 🤷🏻‍♀️

So far I can't say I've learned any new words from Wordle. They're not all common but I've heard of them all at least once in my life. I've come across a few new words just by guessing combinations when I reach my wits end, but that doesn't happen very often. Although lately I've been getting frustrated a lot more....haha. But in all honesty, I really enjoy Wordle if not solely for the purpose of texting my friend. 😊