Mike is usually late coming to these games. Even though we remind him constantly to show up earlier. So, when 12pm rolled around, J.P. joined in his place.

J.P. has played other trick taking games before as well as bridge. And he has watched us play, so it didn’t take much for him to get up to speed. However, he did make some beginner mistakes. For Ed’s first Tichu call, Ed was down to one card and J.P. took the lead with a single King. He then has two cards left (K2). Unfortunately, he led the 2 (since he knew it was a looser). He should have led the King instead because everyone else had passed on the single King before. I was in no position to stop Ed with a A32.

The other mistake that he made was playing a Phoenix on Ed’s Queen when Ed called Tichu for the second time. Yes, it is worth -25 points. But, it is a powerful card that should not have been thrown away so quickly and needlessly.

And once again we lost by one Tichu call and 230 points.