New Tichu Converts

I successfully taught Lisa's son and daughter how to play Tichu. The son is a gamer, the daughter is generally not. Tal and I, two experienced hands, played against the two of them. It was a slaughter, as in they slaughtered us.

I had two good hands out of about eight. The first hand was fine, but we didn't count it because they didn't have the rules down yet (one of them tried to use a standard straight as a bomb). On the six or so hands after that they gained on every hand, including making Tichus, until the score was something like 735 to 165 against us. I had nothing resembling a Tichu on any of the hands. Finally I had a good hand and called Grand Tichu (phoenix, 2 aces, 2 kings, a queen, a jack and a 7). I didn't make it, because the daughter had the dragon to get in, a sequence of five pairs, and then a triple to exit. So even though our team netted 105 of the points on that round, we still lost the round.

The good thing to come out of it was that they both loved the game, which is often helped by winning on your first play. The next day they in turn taught two of their friends how to play, and the scores were much closer.