Don’t book the first trick against the final whistle.
If part of your group is coming from an App State game at Kidd Brewer Stadium, set the start around when the host can open your house or private room. Some alumni will beat the traffic and some will stop to debate a call that was settled forty minutes ago. At a station, neither group misses the beginning of a show. They just pull up a chair for the next hand.
Put two rival witnesses on the same side.
Give me the old roommate who never loses a bet and the friend who keeps the receipts. At my table they can compare notes about a moving card, call a roll of the dice, and watch each other get taken in. Nobody stakes any money. Bragging rights have always been the more volatile currency at a reunion.
For a class picture, toast, or short memorial, agree on a signal with the organizer and I’ll close the table before people gather. Tell me which room the adults have reserved and whether there’s a television people actually came to watch. Put the station beyond the sightline of that screen; the only hands I want people waving are their own.