Wednesday

Saigon Stud Poker: the house dealt me the second card of my second hand today, turning up no less than the Ace spades on the sidewalk of Lê Quý Đôn Street, about a block away our apartment. With Monday's first card, Ace clubs, I have a pretty deadly pair of black aces in my hand, already. This is probably not the massive poker advantage on the streets as it can be at the ol' kitchen table back home. Why? Well, because in Saigon Stud, the house is dealing from a reservoir that conceivably includes every deck in the city, or at least in this district conjunction, so there are really no practical limits to the number of aces that may turn up. Added to this are those wild jokers, so it's even that much easier to imagine tied hands of five aces each. Now let's talk probabilities: while it's possible all the cards I find come from decks lost from a book bag on the back of a scooter and have been scattered along the street by traffic, I think most are from intentional litterers. The cards most often unceremoniously ejected from the deck are the two jokers; I imagine I'll find more of them, statistically, than anything else. I've already found two, but since one was torn in fourths (and I only found three of those) I didn't count it as a card. Other than jokers, however, I imagine it will be bad hands that are flung to the ground most frequently, by players who have just lost the lottery. Typically, bad hands are filled with unsuited low cards, but can occasionally contain faces and aces. But whatever, I have the world's best pair already, and I'm content to bet the pot. Bring on the next card. [Cavin]