Doing it once is tough enough. Doing it threes times is almost unheard of.
On July 26 local cribbage player Lorna Mark pulled off the game’s equivalent of a hole-in-one – the perfect hand of 29 - for the third time in her playing career. Mark did it during her weekly game of cribbage at the Innisfail Senior’s Drop-in Center.
The odds of picking up the hand in a two-person cribbage game are about one in 216,850.
“She’s probably played that many games,” joked Mark’s daughter, Cynthia. “She likes to play her cards.”
The accomplishment is significant considering the average golfer is 18 times more likely to score a hole-in-one. Those odds are a measly one in 12,000.
During the game in late July, Mark had been dealt the five of hearts, the five of clubs, the five of spades and the jack of hearts. To score a 29 she needed to pick up the five of diamonds. Before the cut she showed her hand to the player beside her.
“He said, ‘You’ll get it,’” Mark recalled.
The elusive five turned up when Mark’s playing partner, Al Morgan, had her cut the deck.
“I cut the five myself. I don’t remember doing that on any of the others,” she said. “I was stunned because I really had a hard time figuring out what it was again. I’ve had lots of 28s.”
Morgan said he was astounded.
“I couldn’t believe it – the perfect hand,” he said. “I congratulated her and everything else.”
Marg Dyer, who was at the centre that July day, said only the players immediately around Mark were initially aware of her accomplishment.
“Then the word sort of passed around and everybody was quite happy for her,” Dyer said.
Mark’s first perfect hand occurred in February 1992 while on a vacation in Arizona with Cynthia and her then-husband. Mark said she was initially unaware of her accomplishment.
“The kids said, ‘Mom, you have a 29 hand there,”’ she said.
The second 29 turned up during a game at the drop-in centre about a decade ago – Mark was unsure of the exact date.
Her third perfect hand was also the eleventh ever recorded at the drop-in centre.
A cribbage player since she was “knee-high to a grasshopper,” Mark has played in tournaments around Alberta including some in Acme, Rocky Mountain House, Airdrie and Innisfail.
“I go to all the tournaments I can get to,” she said. “We’re always in-betweens.”
