How seating works across two rooms, what the numbered tokens do, and what happens at the beginners' table on a Thursday.
Seating
Two rooms, two different evenings
The front room is brighter and louder and turns over faster. Five of the eight tables are open seating and most of those are here.
The strongroom passage is dim, cool and quiet, and holds the three tables that can be reserved by telephone for up to six people. Long games gravitate there without being told to.
Every table gets a fresh deck each week, a numbered score card and a lamp of its own. Cards are torn up at the last assay, and the tokens are counted back into the tray behind the bar.
Social games
Five hundred, euchre, cribbage, friendly poker — for points only.
Six to a table
Four at the beginners' table, so nobody is rushed.
Nothing carries over
Scores end at midnight. Every evening starts from zero.
Assay hours
How an evening is called
Assay
Called at
What changes
First
4:30pm
Doors, kitchen opens, beginners' table on Thursdays
Second
6:30pm
Full board, open tables reshuffle for new arrivals
Third
8:30pm
Docket ladder on Saturdays, kitchen goes short
Last
11pm
Last call, tokens counted in, score cards torn up
Confirm you are 18 or over
Past this notice is a licensed house for adults: a kitchen, a bar and eight card tables in an old assay office.
Nothing here can be played online, nothing is wagered and there are no gaming machines — it happens at 74 George Street or it does not happen.
Two entries are written to your browser, the way a docket used to be written at this counter: your age confirmation, and the fact that you have read this. Neither reaches us.See the list
