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Sunday, December 22, 2013

The Hand Not Taken

I posted this photo on the Fans of the NMJL Facebook page with the caption "What would you do?"  The post received quite a bit of commentary.  The common consensus was to go with the closed hand; 444555 444555 DD.  Here is the story (with apologies to Robert Frost)

Two hands diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one player, long I stood
And looked at my card as long as I could
To where it said consecutive run with dragons

Then played the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was concealed and wanted pairs
Tough as for that the picking there
Had worn them really about the same.

Threw the joker, picked a 4 bam, threw the other joker

And both that game equally lay
In discards no throws had trodden back
Oh, I kept the flower for another play!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted the jokers should ever come back.

It wasn't long before I picked another flower; none had gone out.

I shall be posting this with a sigh
on Facebook ages and ages hence;
Two hands diverged in a game, and I --
I played the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

In all fairness, the hand would have come in the other way, as I picked and discarded a third five crack and a second green.  Thanks for playing along!

1 comment:

  1. I love this! A perfect tweak to Mr. Frost's opus! And I'm glad that 5th singles/pairs hand worked out for you... Guess it wasn't as zany a suggestion as I thought when I suggested it on your FB post last night.
    This was fun -- More like these please!!!! :)

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