Playing cards have been around for centuries and it’s amazing what games you can play with the same deck of 52 playing cards. I’m studying classic card games to become a better game designer and I’m sharing my findings here. This is the second post in the series. Read the first post here.
In this post I examine trick taking games, i.e. games where you each player play cards into a trick collected by one player. Typically you want to collect as any tricks as possible. Trick taking games are great. Let’s have a look at some.
Whist
At my paternal grandparents we played Whist. They would invite family and friends for dinner and once the table was cleared, the women would go to the kitchen to do the dishes and the men would bring out a deck of cards and play Whist for small change. I remember following the game and I remember learning how to sort and hold thirteen cards in my hand.
Four players, 13 cards per player. There is a bidding system to decide who gets to decide trump. Do we play for tricks or no tricks. Aces are high, except when we play for no tricks then they are low. Must follow suit. Play with a fixed partner or the player leading the hand invites in the player holding a specific card. Score after each game and play as many games as time allows.
The main drawback of Whist is that you need exactly four players. Oh, and everyone has their own variant so you need to agree on the rules when you invite in new players. The bidding system makes it a skill game more than a luck game. Whether you are dealt good cards or not you play the cards you have and the player with the better hand plays against a higher number of tricks.
From a friend I learned a three player variant that we played a lot called 2-4-7. Here the fourth hand of 13 cards form a pool on the table that players can swap cards with. The player leading the hand gets to exchange cards first, then the next player, and if any left, the third player. Players take turns in deciding the game for the hand out of four: Sans, Sol, Trump, Clubs. All four must be chosen eventually, you play exactly 12 hands and keep track of scoring after each. The leading player has a clear advantage but when scoring, the leading player is expected to take 7 tricks, next player 4 and the third only 2 (reversed when playing Sol for no tricks). Hence the name.
With practice you learn card counting. This is good memory training. At first you keep track of the high cards, the aces, the trumps. Then you learn some shortcuts. As players must follow suit, the first tricks in each suit typically comes as four of a suit. Third time you play a suit may see a trump played as one player runs out but every now and then the cards are evenly distributed and one player will have the last in a suit after three plays in that suit.
Whist rewards repeated play while at the same time being not too difficult to play first time. A good balance between luck and skill.
Hearts
In my final year of university, a lector held a course in game theory, followed by game praxis, a couple of hours on a Friday afternoon. When the course ended some of us stuck around. Our teacher invited us to come to his play to play cards on a monthly weekday night. We played a couple of different games depending on who showed up but most of all we played Hearts. Our host was our parent’s age but was as engaged in the games as any of us. He would get quite agitated when another player failed to make the play he was signalling. Good times.
You play Hearts with four players and deal cards and play as in Whist (with no trump). After each hand you count points. Each heart is one, the Queen of Spades is 13. So in each game the takes are 26 points. Except if one player collects all hearts and Queen of Spades, then everyone else gets 26 points. Points are bad. You play until one player has 100 points then the winner is the player with the lowest score. Or you can play as many hands as time allows.
The sum total of all scores is always divisible by 26, this makes it a little easier to keep track.
Hearts has what I call a saddle point: A point in the game where the game can change into two very different games. At the start of the game you either play for collecting no points or for collecting all points. As the game plays out, you need to pay attention and possibly pivot. If someone appears to be collecting, the remaining three players have a prisoner’s dilemma: We either all lose or one of us have to take a trick with points to the other two go free. If you decide to take one for the team, can you get away with as few points as possible? Or if you failed to collect all, can you minimise the loss?
Games where the best strategy can change as the game evolves are great. This rewards players who pay attention and gives the game a learning curve where you will want to play the game again and perhaps make a different choice next time.
Asshole
In the final years of school we played Asshole most recesses. A game where losers give their best cards to the winners and thus play next game with a disadvantage but every now and again you manage a surprise win. We played this game when we visited Berlin in the weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We were sitting in Palace of the Republic waiting for a guided tour when one staff member came around and said dismayed “Das is doch kein Kneipe!” (This is not a bar!). 15 year old kids from Denmark had no such respect for the GDR.
Asshole is a game where you play to shed the cards in your hand. You don’t collect and score the tricks, but the way to shed your cards is related to trick taking. When you get to play from your hand, you can play more than one card at a time as long as they have the same value. Say two eights. The other players must then also play the same number of cards. Say two nines, two tens or two kings. Aces are high and twos are higher for some reason. You can add three jokers, these will then be highest. If you cannot play higher than the player before you, you must pass. Instead of counting tricks, you win the game by shedding cards from your hand first.
You then play many games in a row, as many as you want. In each following game, the loser (the Asshole) must give their three best cards to the winner while the winner (the President) selects three cards to return. Once you lose a game your odds become much worse — but every now and then the Asshole wins and becomes President. Now I think about it, much like real life.
It’s a good game played among peers. Just be good natured about the winning and losing and the unfairness it creates. The game takes many players — you just deal cards until the deck runs out. You don’t need to keep track of points and you only need table space large enough to play cards and collect cards for the next game.
Asshole shows that you can enjoy a game where starting positions are uneven. Games don’t need to be balanced. Games need to be fun and every player needs to have a decent shot at winning.
Other trick taking games
The book (Holmström 1981) mentions other trick taking games that were new to me. Games where you play with fewer cards. Games where you deal some of the cards face up. These are ways to make it easier to deduce what cards your opponent holds so you can better assess the value of your own hand. I have not played these yet. I guess they will induce AP with some players, trying to recall what cards they saw and how this can help them decide what to do next. Would be great to try them one day.
Next
Next post is about card games where gambling is a key element. Games of luck and skill where you bet chits or money on the outcome.