One of the goals I had set for myself at the beginning of the year was to have pinochle tournament card setups of high-end plastic cards suitable for tournament use. I am now within reach of that goal.

Later this week I should have - ready for use - three 15-table setups of cards, ready for use. I'm also planning on a 45-table setup which would have covered the the tournament with the largest number of players I've ever attended.

We used the 20 sets I currently own out of the planned 45-table set in Detroit recently and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The players loved the ease of shuffling and handling which goes along with the use of plastic cards. The sets were returned with only one card missing, which can and will be replaced.

In addition, there were tournament directors from other tournaments who expressed an interest in using those cards for their tournaments - and that's what they're there for.

As an offshoot, I now have a goodly number of setups for my personal use.

The reason for all this is that I enjoy playing with good cards - they enhance the pleasure of playing the game - and, in the last couple of years, I've become somewhat of a playing card collector, obtaining rare and hard-to-get cards. Amongst the sets I currently have are Copag Centennials in both bridge and poker widths, which, IMHO, have the most beautiful, if somewhat impractical, faces of any deck I've ever seen.

More on this later as progress is made.