Fun and Games Friday: Presidential edition

It was like hitting the blog fodder jackpot.

It all began innocently enough. The Shiputzim daughters were playing a card game, and mildly curious, I asked what it was called.

“President,” one of the girls volunteered.

“President?” I repeated, never having heard of such a game.

“Yes,” came the confirmation.

My interest was piqued. This definitely had blogging potential.

“What’s it called in Hebrew? Prrrreh-zeedent?” I asked hopefully.

My daughters nodded.

Bingo!

But the best was yet to come.

The girls began to explain the rules, and although most of the details are well beyond the scope of this post, there are three elements which specifically appealed to the blogger in me:

1) When a player wants to pass, s/he says “pahss.”

2) When one puts down four cards from the same suit, it’s knows as “Kodak” (pronounced “koe-dahk”).

3) And then there’s the following, which, IMHO, is truly awesome:

• The winner is the “president” (or, rather, the “prrrreh-zeedent”) – hence the game’s name.
• The loser is called “zevel” (literally, garbage).
• If there are a total of three players, the one who comes in second place is usually referred to as the “middle” (pronounced “mee-dell”). In an alternate version of the game, this player is called “nootrali” – i.e. “neutral”. (Mah?! Zeh gam milah b’Anglit?!)
• If there are five players, the second place winner is the “vice president” (pronounced “viiiice prrrreh-zeedent”), and the one who comes in second to last is known as – are you ready? - “viiiice zevel” (i.e. “vice garbage”).

I kid you not.

So, thank you, Mr. or Ms. Game Originator, from the bottom of my blogging heart. You really, really, REALLY made my day…

!שבת שלום ומבורך