What?!

Two Thanksgivings ago I was on a cruise ship en route to the Bahamas when I decided to try my luck at the 3-card poker table at the casino. After all, I thought, how different could it be from good ol' teen-patti. My luck alternated between good and not-too-bad for most of the session till I was dealt a hand with three queens. Whoa! a trail (as we Punjoos call it) - surely I was really going to rake in the moolah with this one. However, a fellow gambler with a straight flush walked away with the big pot. I was sure the dealer had erred, but decided not to protest out of fear I would be thrown into the Caribbean by the casino goons.

To figure out what had happened, I did what any sane person would do - I Googled it. And Google, with its infinite wisdom and mathematical logic revealed that a straight flush is indeed harder to get than a three-of-a-kind when playing the three card version. What?! We've merrily been playing flush for eons, completely oblivious of the true math of permutations and combinations!! I swore the next time I sat down at a teen-patti table, I would enforce the right rules.

..But later thought better of it. After all, the thrill of getting a straight flush is nothing compared to the chills that go down one's spine at the site of a trail.