FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
I love a game of cards. Twenty-Fives to be precise. I can’t, however, remember the last time I played nor do I know where you’d find a game going on these days. Time was when card-playing was quite popular – in pubs, note. Not in fancy lounges with exotic drinks and piped music. Twenty-Fives was especially popular around Christmas when three teams of three played each other in what was called a Nine for Turkeys.
My father loved a game of Twenty-Fives and played in Seán Byrnes while my father-in-law, Aussie Murphy, played in Tallents (now Cleere’s) and in the backroom of the Marble City Bar. I played a little in Mickey Brennan’s (now The Field) Was I any good?
Well, here’s a piece I wrote a good many years ago which will answer that question:
This time of year you may indeed behold: groups of men, and women, huddled together in nooks and corners of their local hostelries and watering holes. A certain tension hovers about these gatherings which segregates them from the ordinary hub-bub and murmur of the other drinkers.
Eyes serious and alert, foreheads wrinkled in concentration, conversation is limited to monosyllabic grumbles and grunts and the occasional yelp of excitement. Pints, half pints, sit silently between their legs like faithful mongrels while orders for refills are conveyed to the bar in coded nods and gestures.
This could be a plot to rig the Sheep Dog Trials. But it’s not. These men and women are making up a Nine for the coveted Christmas Bird. The game, of course, is the holy game of Twenty-Fives and these nine masters of their craft will weave from Lady Luck and skill, an art form that leaves chess and Chinese checkers in the shade.
Make no mistake – Twenty-Fives for Turkeys is a real man’s game. You need the icy coolness of a Bjorn Borg, the guts and courage of a Welsh prop forward and the mental alacrity of a pocket calculator. Instinct is vital: knowing when to poke or prod, lead up, try a short-corner, stay at home or come your best.
Memory is next to Godliness: who played what, who robbed, who reneged, who failed to trump and who is it coming in to [do so]. A slip-up spells disaster and labels you a bungler for the rest of your card-playing days.
And so it happened that I was lured from the comfort of my bar-stool one night many, many moons ago, to make up a Nine. An innocent at large ie. a card-playing innocent, I hummed and hawed and hesitated, especially as I had never played a Nine before. Not to worry. Couldn’t I play Twenty-Fives and sure I’d pick it up as I went along. Card players find themselves in this dilemma occasionally – short one player, they’ll settle for anyone to keep the game alive. They hadn’t bargained on me. My first mistake was being too friendly.
Shaking hands with everyone was not, I realised, in hindsight, quite de rigeur for the game of Nines. Nor was it necessary to talk profusely about the big match coming up, the inclement weather and the possibility of a White Christmas. My partners looked long and hard into my eyes, trying to assess my card-playing pedigree. They weren’t impressed. I smiled too much and talked too much instead of seeming hell-bent on stabbing my opponents to death with the lone Ace of Hearts.
To make matters worse I got fistfuls of trumps and squandered each and every one of them. Spilling my drink didn’t help matters either or having my missus ring up in mid-deal, reminding me to bring home milk for the breakfast. Blunder after blunder I made and not even the proffering of a round of drinks could appease my partners’ fury.
Needless to say we didn’t win the Christmas bird. Nor was I ever invited to participate in a Nine for Turkeys again. A card-shark in the company summed me up as I left: “Huh, card player, how are ya.”
PS: The most interesting game of Twenty-Fives I ever played was on the top of a coffin lid. But that, as they say, is another story.
