William's Primero Challenge
Unto All Gentles in the Known World:
Having in the course of my travels made the acquaintance of one Camillus, formerly of Naples, who had lost all his worldly wealth twice over through ill-conceived gambling, but later gained greater wealth still through ministrations to the poor and infirm, I, known hereabouts as Master William the Alchymist, do call to those who enjoy games of cards. Since you are fated to lose your wealth through gambling in any case, let your inevitable loss help promote good work done for our society.
Whereat I make proposal of the following. Let there be a tournament, not arms, but of hands. Let those who wish participate. Let these gamesters designate at their whim some beneficiary engaged in good works for our benefit, be they chiurgeons, trainers of youths, promoters of the arts and sciences, or suchlike. Let these gamesters also set down an amount, and let these amounts be gathered into a great pool. Let the gamesters contest with one another in the noble game of primero, as played by one from Bergamo, until one shall be the winner, whereupon their designated beneficiary shall receive the whole of the pool, and they themselves shall receive the far greater reward of having helped promote good works in our land and the acclaim of all for their skill and beneficence.
Mundane Information
Within a year or so I would like to begin running a series of primero tournaments at events to help raise money for different SCA-related causes. The format will be something along the following lines:
- Each player pays a fee (probably $5) to enter, and designates a specific cause (e.g., "East Kingdom Chiurgeon's Fund," "Barony of Somewhere," "Youth Fighting," etc.; you can designate anything that has a corresponding kingdom officer, or any territorial group). They receive a certain number of tokens as their "bank."
- The entrance fees go into a pool. Anyone who wishes to add to the pool without playing is welcome to do so (but really, you should play...)
- The contestants play a primero until they get tired, or they've lost all their tokens. People may join (or rejoin) the tournament at any point, probably for a lesser donation (to reflect the fact that, if you enter after someone is already winning, you have a lesser chance of winning).
- At the end of the day, the player with the most tokens is declared the winner. There may be nominal prizes worth as much as $1.
- The cause designated by the winning player receives the pool (this is the real prize). For example, if you're playing for the East Kingdom Chiurgeon's fund and you win, the East Kingdom Chiurgeon's fund gets the entire pool of prize money.
The tournament will use the Bergamese rules.
Anyone interested in helping to organize these events (including teaching people to play primero, hosting primero nights, etc.) should email me at [email protected] (change the xxx to com to get a valid address). I'd be especially interested if someone wanted to coordinate a demonstration match ("The king, the pope, the German ruler...").
Anyone interested in hosting a tournament as part of an event should definitely contact me at [email protected] (change the xxx to com to get a valid address)..
Note: Camillus de Lellis (1550-1614), born in the Kingdom of Naples, was a gambler who eventually turned to hospital administration and became canonized in 1746. Officially he's the patron saint of nurses and nurse's associations; popularly he's the patron saint of gamblers and "good death."