IIRC, that passage in Harding's Luck is fairly marble-in-jam (that is, easily skipped without spoiling the whole, but could be nasty to encounter if you don't know it's there).

https://books.google.com/books?id=r14wAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA210 (scroll down past the mushy bit, on the left-hand side) has a good description of the game (and then, wow, its effect on a man with a phobia -- oh, man, this is definitely hurt/comfort stuff).