All right, taking a cue out of the comment made by my friend Susheyl, I thought its time to graduate to Adult games we used to play… Yeah Adult Games…. I can kinda see all the wicked eyes, ears and whatever pop up… no pun intended.
Im jus talking about a game of cards called the Teen Patti in Hindi, Three Cards in English, Mucheetu in Malayalam, Munnu Seetu in Tamil… Well one should know that variations of this game is Poker, yeah maaan Poker, played in the high profile gambling dens of Las Vegas… Incidentally this game was also India’s contribution to the world.
I would say we started young at it…The stakes used to begin with 50 Paisa and on days whn we were rich and famous we started on rupee deals. Boy the kinda high this game used to give us wouldn’t match the best Scotch in town. The contract was that the winner would share his booty buying us all Panneer Sodas (Pepsi's and Coke on the days of higher stakes) or dums (Ciggys) for the smokers… a win win situation for all.
Talking about ‘panneer soda’ carbonated Rose Water in English, I’m wondering y this is yet to be canned and marketed as Paneer Cola or Paneer Pepsi…Yeh Dil Mange More….Its still sold in the same bottles I drank from 2 decades back…some recycling this…
Coming back to the game 3 cards, it was a game which needed an equal measure of luck, mathematical and statistical skills, since a lot of probability, frequency and the likes were involved… Some acting skills were also required to feign a make-believe-face that u hold the ultimate three cards with u. The convenience of playing this game was that it actually didn’t need any infrastructure, all u needed were a pack of cards …No Wait a minute… we did’nt even need that... we used to create our cards and play during a Strength of Materials or a Fluid Mechanics class… God save the guys who are buying pumps from me...(btw, that’s what I do for a living).
On the other hand, the game of Mangatha depended entirely on your stars on the given day. You needed a pack of cards, 2 contestants (read gamblers) and plenty of spectators around u to chant 'ullaey', 'veliyae' in unison… You also needed to declare the table money upfront and the winner takes em all. Player 2 needed to pick a card which he does after invoking all the gods…
Player -1 starts throwing open cards one by one into 2 sets, the ‘Ullae set’ (Inside set) and the ‘Veliyae set’ (Outside set). If the card bearing the number picked by player 2 falls in the ‘Ullae Set’ player 1 wins, if it falls in the ‘veliyae set’ Player 2 wins.
So you see, if 3 Cards was Test Cricket this was the 20-20.
Wish I could do it all over again ‘Orru Kai Mangatha podu machee’ translated ‘hey dude lets play another round of poker’
Guys looking to brush up their basics on 3 Cards here u go
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Patti
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