Special to the Herald

No matter what you call the game; Pitch, Setback or Hi Lo Jack, the 25 teams, made up of 50 players at the Cranston Senior Center were shuffling up and dealing for the seventh annual tournament on Tuesday, July 2nd.

For the past seven years, Ray Walsh has been organizing and arranging several Hi Lo Jack games at the center. This year he turned tournament control over to Carol Frisina.

In a change of traditional tournament play, Frisina set it as a best of two out of three games.

“We only have so much time to play. We could never finish today if we had to play the regular seven games,” she explained.

So, instead of the usual winners being the highest ranked teams, it becomes an all in or all out game.

“And, because we had an uneven amount of teams, not all teams started. We had four teams we had a bye for the first round,” said Frisina.

With the format of only two wins needed, the afternoon progressed quickly with teams being knocked out speedily.

After three hours of play, there were two teams left standing.  Each team had already beaten four other teams.

With a few dedicated players sticking around to see who won it all, play started off interestingly. Each team won a game. But, it needed to be a two game win.

Both teams agreed to call it a tie, and split the money prize.

After several hours of cards, all  the players were more than happy concede to the suggestion, amde by one of the players.

“Each team played well. It was an interesting ending to the new format,” said Frisina.

Hi Lo Jack is offered Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Friday at the Senior Center. Different days play at different times, and the cost is different.

Go to https://cranstonseniorcenter.com/ for more information, or call (401) 780-6000.