Learn About Jokers & the Kitty in Bid Whist

Video Transcript

"We talked about this previously and we'll just mention this again. You have two Jokers; a bigger Joker and a small Joker. Now some people, if you get one of the spades that Bicycle makes there's a little marking here that shows you which is which. You see that little symbol there, it looks like a U with a dollar sign through it. Some people actually put a little mark above the big Joker so that you can see that that's the big Joker. I don't really like doing that but I guess if you see somebody pick up their hand and they're looking at them you know that they have a Joker in their hand. So this might not be a bad point as long as you don't mark all the way through the deck. Personally, I think when you pick up your hand if you a Joker symbol you should know which one you have and be smooth about it. Again, big Joker, little Joker, only if you're calling trump. If you don't call trump then these things are dead and we'll go through the procedure of how you avoid that and how they really have no value at all. Bid Whist players basically have a system or understanding that if you're bidding five or six you're really expected to have these in your hand. If you don't, at least one of them, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. So, kitty, kitty's the same thing. You have 54 cards, so you're going to deal everybody 12 cards and the kitty is going to be 2, 4, 6, cards, so the hands all been dealt out. If you're the dealer make sure that you have the kitty. I mean that's the same thing. Luck factor, I wouldn't say it's off the charts but I would probably say it's about a 7.0 on the richter scale. When you getting rid of half of your hand you have a tremendous advantage when you're the dealer. So the bidding is absolutely wild. However, if you pick up a hand that's loaded with middle cards and no jokers, you're in a lot of trouble because you can't attack high, you can't attack low. But many a game has been decided by making a Boston or making a no trump Boston in their hands. So I would say, that it would be pretty obvious that the luck factor is very strong. A good partnership is even stronger and skill level is what really makes the difference. But the luck, you can't deny it. It would be like playing poker with Jokers."