ROUSES_MayJun2019_Magazine-Print

“Talking across the table is forbidden,” says Rob. “You’re not allowed to tap your- self on the heart or touch the diamond on your ring.” Regarding bidding: if a team shoots the moon, they could bid for a theoretical maxi- mum score of 14. (Only the fives of the same color are worth five; the active suit is the high pedro, and the other, the low pedro.) A team must bid, at a minimum, a score of seven. With me so far? Are you sure? If you intend to play at home, you really ought to google the rules. After the cards are dealt, the player to the left of the dealer can either bid or pass. This goes all the way around the table — bid or pass — and you can only bid higher than the current highest bid. If everyone passes, the dealer is forced to bid seven. Once play begins, teams must, at a minimum, win the number of tricks they have bid, lest terrible consequences befall them. The player who bids the highest chooses the trump suit. In other words, if he or she chooses clubs, only the ace, jack, 10, two, and both black fives are worth points.

DIVERGES FROM THIBODAUX. The people in Houma play a “cutthroat” variation where you do not need to play the active suit.) If you aren’t holding the active suit, you can play any suit you would like. The highest trump wins the trick, or the highest card of the active suit. The winner of the trick leads off the next round. That’s my understanding, anyway. “If dia- monds were declared at the start, but the high bidder starts by playing a heart, every- one has to play a heart?” I ask. “If you have one. Except the five of hearts, because technically for that round, it’s a dia- mond,” says Ali, and I begin to question the career choices I have made that led me to this card table. Just to be clear about something: the pe- dro card — the five of the trump suit — does not automatically win on its own. It is the most valuable card, but a six could easily beat it; your partner would have to protect that card (by playing a high card). Whichev- er team wins the trick, wins the pedro — and thus its five precious points. “If you play an ace, you want your partner to play a pedro,” says Cindy Rouse Acosta. Once all of the cards are played, the point cards in each of the tricks are counted up. If a team bids eight, but only scores seven, their score for that round is negative eight. Meanwhile, the opposing team, who did not bid, simply adds up their points and adds the total to the score sheet. The next player clockwise becomes the dealer, the cards are shuffled, and the deal begins again. The game ends when a team reaches 52 points. Everyone at the table has been playing the game for as long as they can remember. “I learned to play when I was about 10 years old,” says Chris. He learned from his grand- father, who held weekly games. “Imagine like 12 grandfather-age men eating hard- core South Louisiana meals every Sunday night,” he says. “They would play cards and eventually we would get in [the game].” Because Pedro is a four-person game, the losing teams would rotate out, and a new duo would be dealt in. “My dad always knew what everybody had,” Cindy says of her father, Anthony Rouse, founder of Rouses Markets. “Or he just made everybody think that,” jokes Chris, who is her son. “We all played it as a family. Papa Rouse, when he wasn’t playing, he would still stand over the table and watch everybody and mumble under his breath sometimes, ‘Ahh, don’t play that hand’ or ‘Who dealt this?’ just trying to gauge the table.”

Next, players (other than the dealer) discard from their hands any non-trump- suit cards, and are dealt enough cards to bring their hand up to six. For example, if you discard seven of the nine cards you are holding, you would be dealt four cards. 9-7+4=6. (Look, it’s even more confusing when a Rouse is explaining it to you because, again, they are all Jedi Masters at this game, and I think it’s hard for them to conceive of somebody not playing pro-level Pedro.) The dealer, meanwhile, gets to look through the entire remaining deck and builds his or her hand entirely from the trump suit. This might mean holding more than six cards. It’s good to be the dealer! “There’s a lot of psychological warfare in this game,” Ali warns me.

PLAYING THE HAND YOU’RE DEALT

The highest bidder goes first. He or she can play whatever suit is desired. Each sub- sequent player must either play that suit or the trump suit. (THIS IS WHERE HOUMA

64 MAY•JUNE 2019

Ali Rouse Royster and Lee Veillon