Card players cruise to tournament

The `Dutchies' met for a group photo on Dutch night on board the M.S. Westerdam.

The annual Klaverjas tournament was held on the high seas this year as 26 members of the Klaverjas Club `70 Roem' played on board the HollandAmerica Line, M.S. Westerdam, cruising through the Caribbean earlier this winter. (Klaverjas is one of the most popular card games in the Netherlands, traditionally played in cafes and social clubs, as well as at home. The game is for fourplayers who play in pairs, sitting opposite each other. The game has a number of variants, named after the cities where they originated: Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. ) Kees de Groot, president of `70 Roem' expressed hope at the start that no one would play with the proverbial `knife on the table' as it was not known what the calibre of all the players was and the emphasis was on having a good time. Anyone who is familiar with the game, knows the Rotterdam version, which is played at the Georgetown club on Friday nights, but some in attendance only played Amsterdams, a more advanced version. In order to be fair to all participants, it was decided that we would start with Rotterdams on the first day, but that both versions would be played on different days by everybody. This was a challenge for some of the participants, but lucky for us, there were some unselfish and generous players who did not mind bringing us up to speed ahead of time by showing us how the two versions differ from each ohter. The scores were as follows: first, Jan Kok, 15,737 points; second, Bernadette Smits, 14,865 and third, Kees de Groot, 14,842 points. The pit scores were: first, Mary van den Akker, 8 pits; second, Bernadette Smits, six pits; third, Corrie Lipman, six pits; fourth, Kees de Groot, six pits. Sponsors were Vision 2000, Duca Credit Union and Jannie Haarmeyer.