GR senior pinochle tourney draws crowd

There was lots of friendly competition and jokes about being dealt bad cards at the Golden Hour Senior Center Thursday during the pinochle tournament.

Drawing inspiration from senior centers in Rock Springs and Evanston, who have regularly put on pinochle tournaments, GHSC decided to try its first day-long tournament.

"I think everybody's had a good time," GHSC employee Mary Grubb said.

The seniors started around 10 a.m. and were wrapping up the tournament at around 4 p.m. A few volunteers showed up at 8 a.m. to help set up the tables and shuffle the cards really well. They set eight tables up, making it so 16 teams could compete.

The tournament was a bracket-like play where the teams with the most wins moved up toward table one and the players with the least wins moved down toward table eight.

Pinochle is a card game played with a 48-card pack. The seniors were playing four-person games in pairs. Each person had one partner they moved from table to table with.

In pinochle, the players sit across from their teammate and they each play one card per round and try to form combinations of cards to earn points. The winner is the team who wins the most rounds.

In the early afternoon, the competitors took a lunch break to eat the table of foods both the kitchen and participants provided. There were biscuits, cinnamon rolls, cookies, breads, casseroles, fruits and more. After fueling up with food, they went right back into playing.

Pinochle is a game of both strategy and luck. It takes strategic play to find card combinations to earn points, but players also have to hope they are dealt a decent hand, and participant Sam Blackwell can attest to that.

"That's the first good hand I've had today," Blackwell said after winning a round. "I like better cards than I've been getting."

Each time a team had to move to a lower-ranking table, they also had to pay 25 cents per player.

"They call it the Walk of Shame," Grubb said as one of the participants walked to the money bucket as other participants jokingly clapped for him. The money bucket had a label wrapped around it that said, "Walk of Shame. Please Pay 25 cents for Each Set."

"I have to feed the kitty," participant and tournament helper Charlene Miller said as she dropped 50 cents into the bucket. Miller said she and her partner, Goldy Buckendorf, were ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack.

The teams finishing in the top three spots would win a cash prize and the team finishing in last place would receive a booby prize.

The first place team got $40, second place received $24 and third place was given $16.

With 16 teams participating, GHSC was impressed with the turnout.

"We would like to make this a regular thing," Miller said.