PEARLS OF PAN FROM THE TNPANMAN
The Programmer's Question
Hand #1
Your Hand: 2C 5H 7H 7C 7S 7S QD QD QH KC
Here is a hand that is similar to a question I received from a Card Game Programmer -- Let us see if we can help him out and provide a simple example for my Patrons -- lets play some Pan! Let's first evaluate the hand to see if it is worth playing THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT DECISION. This is a very nice hand to play because it has a pay (the 7's) and has at least 7 working Cards (7's and Q's). A good Pan player is a tight one and will play less hands -- if you are running hot you can usually play anything. This is a good hand to play.
There are 5 players that have declared to play including you -- so there will be 4 payers. When it is your turn, you pluck a QH and realize that you cannot use it because you need at least 3 of the same suit or 3 different suits to make a meld of the QH (Exception Aces and Kings) -- so you have to to throw it in the muck for the next player to have the Option. If you don't get a hit to this hand and someone goes out before you get down -- you will be peckered holding those 7's! But on our next turn we pick a QC and therefore meld QC QD QH and 7H 7C 7S and call for One Chip (for the 7's of at least 3 different Suits which is a Pay Condition). We hold back the other QD and other 7S because if it doesn't pay us anything -- why show the table how FLAT we are? We discard the 2C because there is no way that it will play with our other Melds and it is the best discard. So at this point we have:
ON BOARD:
QC QD QH 7H 7C 7S
OUR HAND HAS LEFT:
QD 7S 5H KC
The game continues and we catch a QD -- that is a nice Catch! We drag the QD to our Meld on Board and we add the QD from our Hand and call for One Chip (The program pays you after you discard) because we now have 3 Non-Valle Cards in the same suit (QD QD QD). Now we have to discard a card to finish our melding. Do we discard the 5H or the KC? If you said the KC -- you would be wrong -- Why? Because the KC plays to the Q's. If a JC comes along we would go out (with a good one KQJ is a pay run). We now discard the 5H because the KC can play to the Queens, but the 5H cannot be used with the 7's. Here is why: If a 6H came along and you borrowed the 7H on the board to meld 7H 6H 5H, this would not leave a VALID meld spread of the 7's. The 7H 6H 5H would be valid but not 7C 7S 7S. So the 5H must go.
We now have:
ON BOARD:
QC QH QD QD QD 7H 7C 7S
OUR HAND HAS LEFT:
KC 7S
The game continues and we hit a 7C and meld it to our board. We discard the KC.
We now have:
ON BOARD:
QC QH QD QD QD 7H 7C 7C 7S
OUR HAND HAS LEFT:
7S
We are FLAT in Our Hand -- but the other players don't know it. We need ONE More hit to go out!
We hit a JC -- and here is what we do -- WE GO OUT. We drag the JC to our Meld Zone and add the 7S from our hand and make these three Melds of 11 cards:
ON BOARD:
QC JC 7C QH QD QD QD 7H 7C 7S 7S
There were a total of 5 players in this hand which means 4 payers. Let us calculate the payout:
Here is What We Get For Going Out
OC JC 7C.................................................................................No Chips
QH QD QD QD............................................................................1 Chip
7H 7C 7S 7S.................................................................................1 Chip
Going Out....................................................................................2 Chips
TOTAL = 4 Chips From each Payer
So in chips for Going Out we get 4 X 4 Payers = 16 Chips.
So how much did we make during the whole round? -- lets calculate:
Amount For Going Out...............................................................16 Chips
Amount Collected from 4 Payers for:
QH QD QD QD........................................................................4 Chips
7H 7C 7S 7S.............................................................................4 Chips
Amount of Chips Paid Out to the Other 4 Players......................-5 Chips
Amount of the Ante's (Tops) Collected For Going Out
(7 Players - 2 Chips For House Take)........................................5 Chips
TOTAL COLLECTED FOR HAND.....................................24 Chips
