The Card Table Corner Finally Filled Up

For a long while there was an odd gap in the corner of the room I'd set aside for card games — a table, in effect, with only two chairs pulled up to it. Fireside Twenty-One and Parlour Third Card had been there since the start, but the space always looked like it was waiting for company, and I kept putting off deciding what else belonged there.

Ante and Fold was the easier of the two to settle on. Three cards against the dealer, a simple call on whether to play the hand or fold early, is about as close as this room gets to a game you could learn by watching someone else play once. It slotted into the corner without much fuss and has quietly become one of the shorter, calmer rounds on the shelf.

Spread Card Gap took longer to get right, mostly because betting on a gap between two cards is a slightly stranger idea to explain than most of what's here. I rewrote the on-screen instructions three or four times before they read clearly rather than like rules copied from somewhere else. It helped to picture actually saying it out loud to a friend at the table rather than writing it for a screen.

With both added, the card corner finally looks like a corner rather than two chairs and a gap. It is a small thing, but it was the last piece of the room that felt unfinished, and I'm glad to have it settled before the year gets much further along.