Starting in 1985 and ending in 2021, I hosted an annual card party. It started in Somerville, continued in Gill, and took place in Montague since 1997. 391 different people came at least once. I kept track of attendance, as you can see from this spread sheet. 43 people attended 10 or more times. Oh Hell! and Hearts were the most commonly played games, but bridge, charlemagne, crates and other games have been regularly spotted. One feature of the party was that people brought really good food. Memorable card party events include when Sunshine led a seminar about his gender analysis of Oh Hell! scores; when we had 86 people in attendance; the year the power went out (and the following year when I tried to recreate the power going out), and the 2016-2017 skype games with Karen Werner in Vienna. We always remember Jim Gallagher, the most dedicated attendee in the first two decades (and a wonderful human being) whom we dearly miss.
Alas, for a variety of reasons, the big party has been discontinued. But, once the covid pandemic hit in 2020, about 10 of us started playing every Saturday night on line, - mostly Oh Hell but also pinochle and occasionally Spades. Keeping track of the Oh Hell games (440 of them as of 2/228/24), we've generated lots of statistics!