A Hell of a Good Card Game

Last weekend, I spent a good amount of time during the weekend playing cards with my aunt, uncle, and brother. Needless to say, my brother and I are ridiculously competitive, even as adults. The game of choice was 'O Hell', a popular game in our family growing up. I've played it with a few of you as well, so I'll spare the rules.

In the first game, which was the only game that included my aunt, I jumped out to a commanding lead after hitting my bid in five consecutive hands. By luck more than anything, I managed to hit my bid on the last trick at the expense of my aunt, who was starting to get frustrated. After putting a huge guilt trip on me, she decides to intentionally miss her made bid on the sixth hand and takes an unnecessary trick just to keep me from making my bid. Needless to say, I was shocked. However, she then proceeded to smack talk me the rest of that game, even as I started a quick slide into third place, where I managed to finish that game. I have never been smack talked by a 70+ year-old lady before, yet alone my aunt. I had no idea how to react to the vicious verbal beat-down that game. I can't fire back. She's my aunt! Worse yet, my brother won the game and let me hear about it the rest of the night.

I decided that I needed to get even. My uncle, brother, and I played four more games on three-way 'O Hell' the next morning. Talk about a volatile game. Three way 'O Hell' is a completely different beast.

Back on my game without my aunt to smack talk, I managed to win twice. My uncle won the other two games, giving each of us one more victory than my brother. However, my brother tried to claim victory over me during the five game series. Despite the fact that I won more games, he outscored me in three of the five games. I called shenanigans since clearly winning championships is more important than being the first or second loser, but my brother does not like to claim defeat. Given that he usually lags his wiser, taller, smarter, and younger brother, he has to hold on to whatever edge he can manufacture. Oh well, he can go back to DC thinking that he proved his superiority in 'O Hell' this weekend. I'll take my two victories to his one! :)