51 cards in the deck

I know, I know... there are 52 cards in a deck. But for one wacky night there were only 51.

Many years ago when my brother-in-law would visit from Phoenix, it became customary for the men (and a few of the women) to play poker. We didn't play for real money. We played for chips and more importantly bragging rights. One particular night we were playing and by a dumb stroke of luck I happened to be winning. The final hand of the night was a game that involved using all the cards in the deck. After the cards were dealt it became apparent that a card was missing. We started looking on the floor, on our laps and any place else a stray card may have been hiding. We couldn't find it. It was then somebody decided to check in the box the cards were stored in. There it was. The king of diamonds had been in the box the whole evening. We had played three hours of poker with 51 cards and nobody noticed. After discovering the error we all complained and joked about how one missing card skewed the results of the whole game. But then we all agreed that even though there were only 51 cards in the deck that night, we all played under the same conditions and only confirmed what everybody already knew... nobody in this family is playing with a full deck.

By the way... I won the last hand too and was declared the big winner for the night. That doesn't happen very often. I've never been much of a gambler anyway.