If you can take a trick, take it.

I played euchre in college.  Euchre is a four-person partnered card game, I started to write, trying to briefly summarize the rules, but now I'm giving up -- here is the Wikipedia article if you need to know more.   It's one of those games that comes in endless variations.   Did I play Ace-no-face?  No thank you.  Screw-the-dealer?  Absolutely.   Nell-O?  Only in Kentucky.

In euchre, as in many card games, there's a certain etiquette, passed down in lore from player to player.  In central Ohio, for example, one emits a moo when one achieves nine points.  Message: I'm in the barn!  The most serious breach of etiquette -- not including rule violations such as reneging -- is summed up in the maxim Never trump your partner's ace.   Another piece of advice is Count on your partner to take one trick.

The bit of advice I remember most is If you can take a trick, take it.  (Wikipedia, helpfully, has an article about tricks.)  It's an important piece of advice for a beginner who might otherwise try to hold on to the "good" cards or who might be intimidated into leaning on the partner a bit too much.  The idea is simple:  When play comes around to you, and you see that you can play a high enough card -- here, in this hand, this trick, right now -- play it.  You might want to consider your move carefully -- Don't, because you're holding up the game.  You might hope you'll look smart and strategic if you hold onto your good card and "throw off" now (play a low card that won't take this trick), saving the good card until the perfect time.  Don't -- that time might not come, and you're not going to look so smart when everyone finds out that you could have taken a trick and didn't.  You might think that your partner will enjoy playing his high card here.   Don't yield to him yet (unless you're thinking of trumping his ace, of course) -- remember, your partner is counting on you to take at least one.

I find that If you can take a trick, take it is a pretty good rule of thumb for housekeeping, and indeed for life in general.   It's not so overwhelming as a plan to win the whole game, or even a hand of the game (five tricks in a hand, three to ten hands in a game).   A trick is a tiny little victory.  Tricks add up to hands,  and hands add up to a win, so these tiny little victories matter.  On each one -- and you rarely know while you're in it -- the whole game might turn.   At the same time, though, when you see you can't take one, you let it go.    Just let it go.  Maybe your partner can play the card that'll take it, but if not -- it's only one trick.

So if I'm passing through the kitchen on my way to the stairs and there's my husband's shoes on the floor and I could take two steps out of my way to grab 'em and take 'em up to the closet with me -- or I might not -- if I can take a trick, take it.  My partner can count on me for this one.  Up they go. 

Or if there's a mess on the floor under the baby's high chair, and I have a few minutes, but I'm thinking Later on I'll be scrubbing the whole floor so why bother cleaning that up now? -- I remember that I don't really know if I'm going to have that time, I don't know if I will win the whole hand, but I can take this trick. 

Or if I happen to be in the bathroom and it occurs to me that while I'm in here I could get a wipe from under the sink and quickly get the worst of the spots off the floor -- that realization, plus the brief seconds of extra time I could use for it, is the "high enough card" to take that trick.  No point saving it for later; when the trump cards come out it'll be worthless.  If I can take a trick, take it.  Twenty seconds later I leave the bathroom a little bit cleaner than it was.

Or if I happen to be in a friend's bathroom, for that matter, if she has company, and I notice that her kids have left a little present smeared on the side of the toilet.  No, she would not expect me to clean it up.  I could go out and tell her quietly, "Hey, your toilet needs attention before your guests see it."  But the container of antibacterial wipes is just sitting there where I can see it.  So is some soap to wash my hands with.   You've heard the answer to But who is my neighbor?  Well, who is my partner in this game, hm?  Anybody who can count on me to take a trick, right?  Twenty seconds later I leave her bathroom a little bit cleaner than it was.

I find myself applying it to housecleaning because those particular opportunities for tiny victories are the ones I'm both likely to encounter and likely to let slip by.  But everyone's jobs, everyone's relationships, everyone's game has these little decisions.  Sooner or later play comes around to you, and you have a certain set of cards, and you have to decide whether to throw off.  If you think too hard you're holding up the game -- that's why we have the rules of thumb.  If you can take a trick, take it.

What kind of tricks can you take today?

Comments

[entropy]

I like this.

[mary]

I like this post. I try to practice the same thing, some days more successfully than others.

[4ddintx]

I really like this metaphor. I grew up playing Rook, sounds kind of like euchre, but uses it's own playing cards, not the standard ones. I can relate to the rules you mentioned and need to incorporate it more at home. Thanks for the reminder!
(My Dad would be proud that there is a spiritual application to his drill in Rook!)

[4ddintx]

Erin, sorry to keep bugging you! I sent the link to this post to some family members and mentioned how is sounded like Rook and what a need application to life. My Dad wrote back with 2 observations: 1-there's a spiritual application to most things if we'll just look and 2--it sounds like you'd make a good partner in cards!

Thought I'd share that with you. Thanks again for the insight.

[4ddintx]

Ok, that's a neat application to life...