I played The Menorah Game with Tal. She beat me in both. The first game was rather close. In the second one, I imprudently bought an early Gold candle to prevent Tal from buying it, and I got nailed with a soldier on the next round, which forced me to toss it. That hurt.
Tal's strategy is to auction a lot, a lot more than I would. It is a sound strategy in a two-player game. It probably wouldn't work as well in a multi-player game.
Still a good game. Someone ought to publish it. ;-)
Card Games
I was trying to think of the best card games using standard playing cards for N players, and this is what I've come up with:
1- Scaling cards, building card houses, scaling cards into card houses
2- 2-player Pinochle, Cribbage
3- ???
4- Bridge, Hearts
5- ??? Cheat? Oh Hell?
6- ???
8+ Haggle, Duplicate Bridge
Pretty pathetic, no?
I've got a few books with card games in them, like A Gamut of Games and Card Games Around the World, but I haven't tried to play many of these games yet.
There have to be better 2-player games. For three players, Skat looks like it might be interesting. Five or six players, anyone?
I played Spades many years ago, but I can't remember it. What essential card games am I missing here? I want to be prepared if I'm ever at a house that only has playing cards.
Yehuda
2 comments:
Take a look here: http://www.pagat.com/number/
and here:
http://www.usplayingcard.com/gamerules/choosingwhichgames2play.html
For 2 players, I'd add Gin Rummy and Oklahoma Gin, California Jack, Schnapsen (Sixty-Six), Bezique, and Russian Bank to your repertoire. For 3 players, look into Skat, Sergeant Major, Parlett's Ninety-Nine, and Preference. There's all kinds of four player games - maybe look into Euchre, 500, Schafkopf, Doppelkopf, Pitch, Scopone, Scheiber Jass, Canasta, Belote, Mus, Zheng Fen, Choh Dai Di, Da Bai Fen, and Zsírozás. For 5, definitely Sheepshead, Poker, Palace, and Zheng Shangyou. For larger numbers, Panguingue looks good and President and Spoons will work as lighter games.
Have fun.
Sean,
Thanks for the reply. Oh, I know where to find Pagat and BGG and lists of lots of games. What I need are recommendations for good ones.
My tastes run more towards Bridge than Gin Rummy. But you've given me a list of games to start looking at, at least. Thanks again.
Yehuda
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