Racko

My sister seems to have developed a strategy that can beat the other three including myself 85% of the time.

Parker Brothers has released a CD-ROM games of cards and rack-o has been included in the disc so that I played a lot of rack-o lately. It appears that you have to learn to play the odds. If during the initial transaction, you get lots of numbers high or low, you may be better to try to get as high a score as possible rather than trying to rack-o.

A rule of thumb is to space on the placement of cards in order to maximize the probability of rack-o. For example: put the cards with a value of ten years or less is the slots marked "5" and "10" cards worth between eleven and twenty in the slots "15" and "20", etc.

Another way to maximize your chances for spreading apart the slots you are waiting to be filled. Another example: your support is 5, 7, 11, 13, 21, 1, 35, 42, 51, 53. You draw 14. Rather than throw 14, replace 21. Now you have twenty cards that can rack-o rather than the thirteen that you had previously.

For practice, I recommend getting the CD-ROM. I found it on sale at Toys "R" Us last month at $ 4.99.