Tall Card...? by Firefighter

FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

Tall Card...?

POSTED BY: FIREFIGHTER
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 17:37
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Friday, May 9, 2003 12:22 AM

In the "Shindig" episode, Book, Kaylee and Simon are playing a kind of poker-like card game where the stake is various kinds of household duties, like "garbage", "dishes" and "septic vat". During the game Simon is talking about "tall card", but I can't figure out what it means. Is it some other duty (and if so - what?) or is the name of a specific card?

Simon says:
Tall card ... plum. Plums are tall.

Book:
I'll take ... two.

Simon:
Two. No tall card claim.

Jayne takes three and Simon replies:
Three. Dealer forced to claim the tall.

A moment later he folds and says:
Tall card's around my neck like a weight.

I would be very happy if someone could explain this incident for me, as English is not my native language.

Thanx!
Firefighter

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Friday, May 9, 2003 1:31 AM

CYRIDEL

As far as I know, and somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, that was just a made up game. I don't think we have any idea what it means either. It seems to be some sort of bad wild card or something to that effect.

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Friday, May 9, 2003 3:00 AM

FIREFIGHTER

Okay ... So it's not a an expression commonly known in card games? It sort of reminded me of "ace", except that here it seems to be a bad card, an anti-joker...

When I look it up, "tall card" has something to do with computers, but that doesn't seem to make any sense here, does it?

Thanks for the answer so far!

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Friday, May 9, 2003 4:08 AM

FREMDFIRMA

My guess is that it's trump suit or similar.

The game itself appears to be some bastardised combination of poker and spades/hearts ?

Heh, at least they weren't playing Magic: The gathering..

-Frem

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Friday, May 9, 2003 4:35 AM

FIREFIGHTER

Yes, I agree. But if it's some kind of trump, then why doesn't Simon win the game? He folds and Book wins.

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Friday, May 9, 2003 5:06 AM

GAEBOLGA

Think of the "tall card" as the queen of spades in Hearts....

- Let slip the Dogs of Art!

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Friday, May 16, 2003 1:56 PM

DUTCH

Yeah it sounds like in Hearts, where it's a bad thing to get either the queen of spades, or any hearts cards. Maybe this game is like hearts, but the person next to the dealer gets to pick what type of card are the cards that give you the points. The tall card.

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Friday, May 16, 2003 2:48 PM

VETERAN

Don't squat with your spurs on.

I guessed that it was some kind of poker and that the 'Tall Card" was sort of wildcard with potentially good or bad consequences. Though it's not poker, the Queen of Spades in Hearts is a good example. If you want to "Shoot the Moon" you need her.

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Friday, June 27, 2003 7:34 PM

TUPPENCE

According to Adam Baldwin, the game was made up and had no set rules -- it was just to indicate that a game involving gambling was being played.

LuxLucre, at the FOX Firefly board, is in the process of making the game a reality. He did some research on the web, and believes that it could be similar, or at least inspired by, Chinese games that early Europeans (like Marco Polo) brought back from the Orient.

The *tall* cards seem to be a small set of 4-6 cards, additional to the deck. There is a long discussion thread called "Firefly Poker", if you'd like to know more of what we think the game's about.

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Wednesday, December 24, 2003 5:37 PM

NOTTHEONE

according to the episode commentary on the DVD, writer Jane Espenson states that she personally made up the game of "Tall Card", that it was an "old fashioned, and at the same time futuristic version of poker", that she came up with a whole set of rules for it, which she taught to the actors,
and that at one time the rules were posted on "the firefly website" (presumably on fox.com, which is now gone).

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