February 28, 2011

The one with the 'Considerable Malpractice'

      This incident involves the Hostel Affairs Secretary of IIT-M. Now that I have captured your attention let me get to the details. It might take time to set the background so please bear with me. A couple of weeks back six of us from all possible divisions of Elec-06 batch(B-Tech & all 3 divisions of DD) went on a trip to Vizag & Aruku. Lets call the people thighs, HAS, potti, p3, dixcy and manav. We were staying at thighs' house. One night after dinner we all sat to play a game of cards. We played poker(Insti amateurs version) for a while and then decided to play Lit, a four player game.
      A small intro to the game Lit for people who doesn't know it: It basically involves four people divided into two teams(of two each). Pack of cards is divided into eight sets and the two teams have to build those eight sets(six cards in each set) by asking others for the cards. You lose your chance, if the person you asked doesn't have that card. A person cannot ask for a card of a set A if he doesn't have any other card from that particular set i.e. you need to have 'at least one card'(lets call it the base card) from a set to ask for other cards of that set. This small intro in enough to understand this incident.
      p3 & dixcy already know this game very well and thighs, potti & HAS learnt it the day before. potti, thighs, p3 and HAS started playing for a while as manav learnt about the game. After some time, dixcy replaced p3 and p3 being GOD at the game was just giving tips to the players in general.
     Couple of games went by when p3 thought of helping HAS what with insti elections coming by and told him that, it is possible for a player to fake by not asking any card from a set even if he has a base card theryby tricking others into believing he has no base card of that set. HAS was so happy at this gyan that he literally put up his famous glowing face. After some time p3 fell asleep and manav replaced potti in the game.
     HAS & thighs are one team and manav & dixcy, the other. I think its better to give the dialogue version from here.
(Right now, in the set of '9 to Ace of clubs', manav has J,Q,K,A and dixcy ran out of all his cards. So only HAS, thighs and manav are playing)
HAS to manav:     Give me king of spades.
manav gives.
HAS to manav:     Give me 10 of clubs.
manav doesn't have that card so the chance goes to manav.
manav thinks:        HAS doesn't have 10 of clubs(because he asked for it) and I don't have it which means.....
manav to thighs:    Give me 10 of clubs.
thighs gives
manav thinks:        I have all cards in the set except 9 clubs now. HAS asked me for card 10 clubs earlier which means he must have a base card at that time which must be the remaining card of the set, 9 clubs.
manav to HAS: Give me 9 of clubs.
HAS:                   yay. I don't have. I tricked you, haha.
everybody's face expression: what the hell?
manav to HAS:    How can you ask me for 10 clubs without having a base card?
HAS (again with his I-beat-you glowing face): I can do that. Ask p3 if you want. It is a 'considerable malpractice'.
Everybody started laughing at HAS when thighs mentioned that actually he too doesn't have 9 clubs. So nobody has 9 clubs! everbody is looking confused when lo and behold HAS takes the card from under his hip(we were sitting on the foor)!!! It looked to us like he deliberately hid the card and then feigned it saying its a 'considerable malpractice'.
    We were laughing our hearts out(even p3 woke up and joined us) when HAS started apologizing saying he didn't know the card was there. As we were laughing he tried to explain that he misunderstood what p3 said earlier about tricking the opponent.
      I never laughed like I did that night. From then on, till we were back in insti, we laughed at that incident at least 10 times. Now, it has become a part of our group's lingo.
I tried my level best to explain the incident but as they say, one has to be there and experience it to get the feel. So though it may not look that funny in writing, I can never forget that incident or the look on HAS face that night ever in my life.