I went for the weekend to my parent's house, along with my daughter Tal and her friend, and Rachel.
Spit
Tal is a game player. She likes all the standard games, as well as some non-complicated Euros, like Settlers of Catan, The Menorah game (she loves, as do all of her friends), and Havoc.
Most of the time, however, when she is not playing with me, she is playing Chinese Spit with her friends. This weekend we played: The Menorah Game once, where Tal won and I was about to win on my next move; and regular Spit, which she made me play with her friend. Tal claims that she hasn't beaten me, yet. I was feeling particularly slow, because I am still sick, so I lost to her friend.
Actually, it came down to single card. I was already down to no flip pile when I missed a single card play. Her friend emptied her hand without my having a chance. The next round, she didn't have a draw pile, and it again came down to single card. I was left with 8, and she with 10. Naturally a 9 eventually flipped up, rather than a 7 or J. We both hit the pile at the same time, but my card somehow ended up stuck halfway into the pile, whereas hers was correctly located on top. Oh, well.
Lexicon
I brought along a few other games. One was Queries and Theories, which I though might interest my father who had once been a computer science teacher, but he doesn't remember anything about natural languages. Another was Lexicon. Lexicon is an old game, one of I don't know how many that are designed around the idea of cards that each have letters on them, and with which you need to form words.
The basic problem with card games with letters whose rules simulate various standard card games is that it is much, much easier to meld words than it is to meld the numbers in a standard deck of cards. True, it takes a little more thinking, but so many more combinations can be used that it is rare that someone doesn't go out within two or three turns.
In this case, the game is a melding rummy. You are dealt ten cards, and on your turn you can either a) lay a word, b) add to an existing word, c) swap cards with an existing word, or d) swap cards with the deck or discard pile. First one out gains no points, and the rest gain the face value of their cards (common letters have higher values). Players are eliminated as they go over 100. Last one standing wins.
As I said, if the game really played out like Gin Rummy, where ten or twenty turns occurred each round, it would be a grand game. As it is, someone always goes down within two or three turns, which makes the game fairly uninteresting. Still, it is fun playing around with the anagramming, and I would play it again, casually.
The game comes with a rulebook that contains another twenty variations, all simulating regular card games, such as Lexicon Bridge, Lexicon Whist, and so on.
Anyway, Rachel and Mom and I played a few rounds, and then my Mom and I played a few more two player later in the day.
Scrabble and Three-Player Bridge
After Mom and I both got bored with Lexicon, I suggested Scrabble as a better alternative, and then won by an embarrassing amount. I scored 395.
Later, my Dad actually volunteered to play three handed bridge with my Mom and me. Three handed is bridge extremely gutted, but still ok if you are not really expecting "bridge", per se.
There are variations, but ours is that eight cards of the fourth hand are turned up. Each player bids, and whomever wins the bidding gets the fourth hand as dummy. The remaining five cards are turned up after the lead is made, and always turn out to contain four cards of some suit one of the defenders was bidding on, at which point they make some pithy remark about how "if they had only known!" That's why it's not really bridge: no partnership bidding, no control over the contract, and no information about where the other cards lie.
I find it generally useful to be quite aggressive when bidding three player. However, you can get a feel for how many values are underneath by listening to the other player's first bids. If one of them passes, odds are that there is a lot under there. If everyone is bidding aggressively, odds are that not much is under there.
We played a few hands.
Yehuda
Showing posts with label spit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spit. Show all posts
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Friday, March 03, 2006
Spit or Speed and Other Such Nonsense
My daughter Tal insists that she hasn't yet beat me at Spit, even though I remember her beating me the last time. So she still "has" to play me so that she can eventually beat me at it.
I know I'm slowing down, but I still managed to win again. Some day I will lose consistently and then I'll be an old dried up little man lying on the beach where bullies kick packs of cards into my face.
Tal has this to say about the two different versions of Spit/Speed she plays:
Name: Spit. She calls it Speed.
Versions:
I (Yehuda) learned the standard (?) American version with 5 piles of 1 to 5 cards, top one open. If you have duplicates, you can double up and open more cards, so long as you have no more than 5 piles at a time. Each player calls Spit and opens a card. Players try to put cards as fast as they can onto either of the middle piles. They can only place cards 1 up or 1 down from the top card of the pile. When the open card(s) on top of a pile are placed, the unopened one below is turned up.
Play is one handed. The other hand has to hold the deck. Cards go up or down and wrap around from King to Ace or vice versa. When one player is out, he or she takes whichever pile he or she wants. The player wants the smaller pile, but has to estimate by eyeballing; s/he can't count or feel the cards.
Tal and her friends play this version with the following changes: You can feed the piles after "Spit" with the other hand. First person to slap after one player goes out gets the pile they slap. If you have two or less cards to play, you can hold them in your hand.
Then there's Chinese Speed: 4 open piles of one card each in front of each player. Every time you play a card to a pile you open back up to 4 piles in front of you. When you finish your deck, you can pick up the cards you have left to play (or the players can decide on a number of cards at which you can pick up). If there are no cards left to Speed from either player, then you mix the piles separately, turn them upside down and open from them. First player to slap a pile gets it after one goes out.
Other card games she plays:
- A game of which she doesn't know the name: Each player lays down 4 cards upside down, looks at two and returns them face down. The point of the game is to have the lowest hand. 10 is worth 0. Ace is 1. J, Q, or K are losing cards unless they cancel out with your opponent. Each round you draw a card, look at it, and replace one of your own or discard it. You can't look at the card you replaced.
If you pull a J, you can swap a card with your opponent (unseen). If you pull a Q, you can look at one of your cards. If you pull a K, you can pull two more. When you feel like it, you can call "Stop" before taking your turn. No points; each game is separate.
- Another game she doesn't know the name, but plays just like "8 1/2": 4 cards face down. Pull 8 cards and put down 8's, 3's, 7's, and 10's, and then your highest cards until you have put 4 face up cards on your face down cards. You leave these piles until the game nears its end.
The player with the lowest card in their hand starts. Each player places a higher card (multiple of the same, if they have) onto the middle pile and picks back up to 4 cards. The Magic cards (3,7,8,10) can be put onto any cards and have special meanings: 8's are "invisible" which means that the next card still has to be higher than the previous card. 3's you can place along with any additional card. 10's burn the pile, which gets tossed out, and you go again. And with 7's, your opponent's next card must be lower. Once 4 cards of the same rank have all been played in a pile, the pile is burnt (discarded).
If you can't put, you have to pick up the pile into your hand. When all cards are gone from your hand and deck, you play cards from your face up pile. When they are gone, you play them randomly from your face down cards. First player out wins.
Not a strategy game.
I won't bother with the other games, because they contain no choices. To paraphrase Bill Cosby, this is called "having a good time".
Yehuda
I know I'm slowing down, but I still managed to win again. Some day I will lose consistently and then I'll be an old dried up little man lying on the beach where bullies kick packs of cards into my face.
Tal has this to say about the two different versions of Spit/Speed she plays:
Name: Spit. She calls it Speed.
Versions:
I (Yehuda) learned the standard (?) American version with 5 piles of 1 to 5 cards, top one open. If you have duplicates, you can double up and open more cards, so long as you have no more than 5 piles at a time. Each player calls Spit and opens a card. Players try to put cards as fast as they can onto either of the middle piles. They can only place cards 1 up or 1 down from the top card of the pile. When the open card(s) on top of a pile are placed, the unopened one below is turned up.
Play is one handed. The other hand has to hold the deck. Cards go up or down and wrap around from King to Ace or vice versa. When one player is out, he or she takes whichever pile he or she wants. The player wants the smaller pile, but has to estimate by eyeballing; s/he can't count or feel the cards.
Tal and her friends play this version with the following changes: You can feed the piles after "Spit" with the other hand. First person to slap after one player goes out gets the pile they slap. If you have two or less cards to play, you can hold them in your hand.
Then there's Chinese Speed: 4 open piles of one card each in front of each player. Every time you play a card to a pile you open back up to 4 piles in front of you. When you finish your deck, you can pick up the cards you have left to play (or the players can decide on a number of cards at which you can pick up). If there are no cards left to Speed from either player, then you mix the piles separately, turn them upside down and open from them. First player to slap a pile gets it after one goes out.
Other card games she plays:
- A game of which she doesn't know the name: Each player lays down 4 cards upside down, looks at two and returns them face down. The point of the game is to have the lowest hand. 10 is worth 0. Ace is 1. J, Q, or K are losing cards unless they cancel out with your opponent. Each round you draw a card, look at it, and replace one of your own or discard it. You can't look at the card you replaced.
If you pull a J, you can swap a card with your opponent (unseen). If you pull a Q, you can look at one of your cards. If you pull a K, you can pull two more. When you feel like it, you can call "Stop" before taking your turn. No points; each game is separate.
- Another game she doesn't know the name, but plays just like "8 1/2": 4 cards face down. Pull 8 cards and put down 8's, 3's, 7's, and 10's, and then your highest cards until you have put 4 face up cards on your face down cards. You leave these piles until the game nears its end.
The player with the lowest card in their hand starts. Each player places a higher card (multiple of the same, if they have) onto the middle pile and picks back up to 4 cards. The Magic cards (3,7,8,10) can be put onto any cards and have special meanings: 8's are "invisible" which means that the next card still has to be higher than the previous card. 3's you can place along with any additional card. 10's burn the pile, which gets tossed out, and you go again. And with 7's, your opponent's next card must be lower. Once 4 cards of the same rank have all been played in a pile, the pile is burnt (discarded).
If you can't put, you have to pick up the pile into your hand. When all cards are gone from your hand and deck, you play cards from your face up pile. When they are gone, you play them randomly from your face down cards. First player out wins.
Not a strategy game.
I won't bother with the other games, because they contain no choices. To paraphrase Bill Cosby, this is called "having a good time".
Yehuda
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Weekend Gaming
The Kids
A weekend with all of my kids is a rare and wonderful thing.
Ariella and Eitan are half-time with their father. When they are not with him, they are often with friends. Rachel insists that that be kept to a minimum, however. Saarya is at a sleep-away school that has him coming home two out of every three weekends. Unfortunately, one of those two is to his mother, and one is to me. So that's one out of every three weekends. Tal is with me one out of three weekends.
Of course, all of the above have numerous exceptions: the party, the bat-mitzvah, the visiting relative, and so on. Which means we are lucky to have them all together one out of every six weeks.
A little truism for you: if you are still married to your children's other parent, you dream about getting away from your children. If not, you dream about having your children more often.
No matter how you slice it, after a divorce, your kids have gone from fourteen parental units of attention each week to only seven. Step-parents can be good models and influence and make a huge difference in their children's lives, but it is rarely the same.
So anyway, this weekend of Hanukkah was one of those syzygies.
Tal specifically likes to play games with me. Usually Saarya does, too, but he spent his time reading. So I played with Tal:
Spit (Speed): Tal beat me for the very first time. We were playing with plastic cards (not plastic coated). They were hard to grasp.
Settlers of Catan: Tal won again. I used to find this game slightly boring two player, but now I find it more than slightly boring. Tal took longest road early enough, but never solidified it enough. I was all set to sweep in for a victory by stealing it, but she won before I could do it.
Yinsh: Tal surprised me by winning this one, too. I think I underestimated her. This game is harder for me than Dvonn. I'm still playing with the failing tactics of getting four in a row whenever possible, even though this is pointless when she can just break the line apart again. In the process, I missed Tal's winning lines.
This is a known psychological problem that people have in games: hoping that reality won't disturb your wish that a play will work, when there is no hope that it can. What is really going on is that you are too lazy to actually work at finding a winning strategy. This happens to many people at the end of Puerto Rico games ("if I craft, will you ship?").
Cribbage: I taught this to Tal. I almost lost this one, too. It came down to the wire, and she only lost by two points.
Chess: I won this one, but only through mutual takebacks. Chess is hard for me. However, Tal is only beginning to explore how the pieces interact.
Late at night, after I had gone to bed, I understand that Tal and Eitan played some games of spit and chess, or something like that.
The Concert
Sat night our new shul put on a benefit concert to raise money. It was very good. The musicians were world class, and the program was very unusual, a wierd mix of different styles of music from different millenia.
One of the singers was my friend Rachel Jaskow, of the renowned blog Elms in the Yard. Nice to see/hear her again.
I snapped some pictures which are on the shul site's navbar (Lhadlik1-3).
Yehuda
Update: Added link to Haaretz article for concert.
Technorati Tags: board game, board games, games, gaming
A weekend with all of my kids is a rare and wonderful thing.
Ariella and Eitan are half-time with their father. When they are not with him, they are often with friends. Rachel insists that that be kept to a minimum, however. Saarya is at a sleep-away school that has him coming home two out of every three weekends. Unfortunately, one of those two is to his mother, and one is to me. So that's one out of every three weekends. Tal is with me one out of three weekends.
Of course, all of the above have numerous exceptions: the party, the bat-mitzvah, the visiting relative, and so on. Which means we are lucky to have them all together one out of every six weeks.
A little truism for you: if you are still married to your children's other parent, you dream about getting away from your children. If not, you dream about having your children more often.
No matter how you slice it, after a divorce, your kids have gone from fourteen parental units of attention each week to only seven. Step-parents can be good models and influence and make a huge difference in their children's lives, but it is rarely the same.
So anyway, this weekend of Hanukkah was one of those syzygies.
Tal specifically likes to play games with me. Usually Saarya does, too, but he spent his time reading. So I played with Tal:
Spit (Speed): Tal beat me for the very first time. We were playing with plastic cards (not plastic coated). They were hard to grasp.
Settlers of Catan: Tal won again. I used to find this game slightly boring two player, but now I find it more than slightly boring. Tal took longest road early enough, but never solidified it enough. I was all set to sweep in for a victory by stealing it, but she won before I could do it.
Yinsh: Tal surprised me by winning this one, too. I think I underestimated her. This game is harder for me than Dvonn. I'm still playing with the failing tactics of getting four in a row whenever possible, even though this is pointless when she can just break the line apart again. In the process, I missed Tal's winning lines.
This is a known psychological problem that people have in games: hoping that reality won't disturb your wish that a play will work, when there is no hope that it can. What is really going on is that you are too lazy to actually work at finding a winning strategy. This happens to many people at the end of Puerto Rico games ("if I craft, will you ship?").
Cribbage: I taught this to Tal. I almost lost this one, too. It came down to the wire, and she only lost by two points.
Chess: I won this one, but only through mutual takebacks. Chess is hard for me. However, Tal is only beginning to explore how the pieces interact.
Late at night, after I had gone to bed, I understand that Tal and Eitan played some games of spit and chess, or something like that.
The Concert
Sat night our new shul put on a benefit concert to raise money. It was very good. The musicians were world class, and the program was very unusual, a wierd mix of different styles of music from different millenia.
One of the singers was my friend Rachel Jaskow, of the renowned blog Elms in the Yard. Nice to see/hear her again.
I snapped some pictures which are on the shul site's navbar (Lhadlik1-3).
Yehuda
Update: Added link to Haaretz article for concert.
Technorati Tags: board game, board games, games, gaming
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Hannukah
Owing to my my wife being in England and my children being at their other houses, I found myself all alone, tonight.
I wandered the slick streets of Jerusalem, head bowed against the pouring rain, shivering in the cold. My feet skidded on the wet rainy surface and I fell upon the hard pavement, exhausted, my body strewn across a puddle. There I was. Lying in the dirty water, alone. Unloved. How long could I go on like this? *sniff* *HONK*
Actually, I called my brother David and went to deliver the Menorah game to them, and they invited me for dinner. Au 'natureaument, I played some games.
They had bought Travel Blokus, which is the two player version of regular Blokus. The board size was 14x14, which I seem to recall suggesting as a good way of converting the regular board to play as a two player game some time ago on BGG ... hmmm ... well what do you know, here it is. I'm such a genius.
Another game they bought was a version of Blink/Speed by Foxmind games. I can't remember what it was called; something short that starts with an "S", but not Speed. And it doesn't seem to be listed as a Foxmind game on BGG. Strange.
However, what we ended up playing was a game of Tigris and Euphrates. I played with Pini (17 year old) and Ariel (11? yo) (gosh, I don't know the ages of my nephews; I'm a bad uncle. In any case, they were old enough that I wasn't afraid of beating them). They had only played a few times. I thought I would make mincemeat out of them, but they both happily collected points for some turns while I spent the time trying to establish position.
I then had some phenomenally bad luck conflicts (you know, the ones where your opponent HAS the four tiles that they need ... several times). I still managed to establish the kingdom later on, and then won, owing to them a) not using their disaster tiles early enough, and b) not ending the game when I had clear control of both monuments on the board. Turns out, with regards to this last one, that they were both shy in a color and didn't think that they would be able to win if the game ended too soon. True, but when I control the monuments, there is no way you are going to catch up unless you kick me out of them.
After that we played two games of the Menorah game. Another one of their friends had joined us by then, and Pini had swapped out for one of his other brothers, so we were four. I won both of these games, too, but they were certainly not easy. Damn fun game, if I say so myself.
I finally got home to light my own candles and make some more food for the rest of the week.
Yehuda
I wandered the slick streets of Jerusalem, head bowed against the pouring rain, shivering in the cold. My feet skidded on the wet rainy surface and I fell upon the hard pavement, exhausted, my body strewn across a puddle. There I was. Lying in the dirty water, alone. Unloved. How long could I go on like this? *sniff* *HONK*
Actually, I called my brother David and went to deliver the Menorah game to them, and they invited me for dinner. Au 'natureaument, I played some games.
They had bought Travel Blokus, which is the two player version of regular Blokus. The board size was 14x14, which I seem to recall suggesting as a good way of converting the regular board to play as a two player game some time ago on BGG ... hmmm ... well what do you know, here it is. I'm such a genius.
Another game they bought was a version of Blink/Speed by Foxmind games. I can't remember what it was called; something short that starts with an "S", but not Speed. And it doesn't seem to be listed as a Foxmind game on BGG. Strange.
However, what we ended up playing was a game of Tigris and Euphrates. I played with Pini (17 year old) and Ariel (11? yo) (gosh, I don't know the ages of my nephews; I'm a bad uncle. In any case, they were old enough that I wasn't afraid of beating them). They had only played a few times. I thought I would make mincemeat out of them, but they both happily collected points for some turns while I spent the time trying to establish position.
I then had some phenomenally bad luck conflicts (you know, the ones where your opponent HAS the four tiles that they need ... several times). I still managed to establish the kingdom later on, and then won, owing to them a) not using their disaster tiles early enough, and b) not ending the game when I had clear control of both monuments on the board. Turns out, with regards to this last one, that they were both shy in a color and didn't think that they would be able to win if the game ended too soon. True, but when I control the monuments, there is no way you are going to catch up unless you kick me out of them.
After that we played two games of the Menorah game. Another one of their friends had joined us by then, and Pini had swapped out for one of his other brothers, so we were four. I won both of these games, too, but they were certainly not easy. Damn fun game, if I say so myself.
I finally got home to light my own candles and make some more food for the rest of the week.
Yehuda
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Purim Fest
Went to the parents this shabbat, and out to a friends for lunch. Of course, games played:
Fri night
Bridge: I've been playing bridge since I was 4 years old with my family, one of the first games I learned after rummy (many different types) and war. Bridge is to card games what Go is to board games - the pinnacle. But you have to play often, and many years, to get the patterns down and start playing well. Experienced players just can't enjoy a game against inexperienced players, or with an inexperienced partner. Even when all players are competent, good manners is keenly important, since the "right" play is sometimes obvious to one player in a partnership, but not the other. That is part of the game, and you have to accept it. But playing "right" does make you feel so smart.
Sat lunch
Pit: Tried to rope my host in to play with me and his kids, but my host, while a lovely man, can't handle this type of game.
Go: His son and I, both amateurs, played a few games. I initially gave him the starting advantage, which he soundly beat me with. I took the advantage the next game, and still lost due to a hairs-breathe race for one point in the middle of the board. We then played the same position several times, each time backing up further to see if I could win by making slightly different plays, but I lost each time. There was something wrong with my initial placement, which I still have to discover.
Arimaa: I don't know where he (son) learned this from, but I tried this game which was designed specifically to be "difficult for computers to solve." The game is played with chess pieces, where each piece can move one space orthogonally in any direction, and you get 4 moves each turn. In addition, bigger pieces can push or pull smaller pieces. There are four spots on the board where, if your piece lands, and is not orthogonal to one of your other pieces at the same time, it is removed from the board. Lastly, one your pieces next to a larger enemy piece is frozen (for you), again unless orthogonal to one of your pieces. Search Google for details.
Anyway, I found the game difficult, but my first impression was that, like Abalone, a good defensive position will probably beat any offensive position. With certain exceptions, such as Go, and the Gipf series, I am not much of an abstract/no randomness gamer, so this doesn't really appeal to me.
Spit/Speed: Whatever you call it. I played against my friend's 11 year old. I still got it, but I am slowing down every year. I measure my lifeblood by assessing how good my spit skills are.
Sat night was Purim dance party. Boomba boomba Boomba boomba.
Yehuda
Fri night
Bridge: I've been playing bridge since I was 4 years old with my family, one of the first games I learned after rummy (many different types) and war. Bridge is to card games what Go is to board games - the pinnacle. But you have to play often, and many years, to get the patterns down and start playing well. Experienced players just can't enjoy a game against inexperienced players, or with an inexperienced partner. Even when all players are competent, good manners is keenly important, since the "right" play is sometimes obvious to one player in a partnership, but not the other. That is part of the game, and you have to accept it. But playing "right" does make you feel so smart.
Sat lunch
Pit: Tried to rope my host in to play with me and his kids, but my host, while a lovely man, can't handle this type of game.
Go: His son and I, both amateurs, played a few games. I initially gave him the starting advantage, which he soundly beat me with. I took the advantage the next game, and still lost due to a hairs-breathe race for one point in the middle of the board. We then played the same position several times, each time backing up further to see if I could win by making slightly different plays, but I lost each time. There was something wrong with my initial placement, which I still have to discover.
Arimaa: I don't know where he (son) learned this from, but I tried this game which was designed specifically to be "difficult for computers to solve." The game is played with chess pieces, where each piece can move one space orthogonally in any direction, and you get 4 moves each turn. In addition, bigger pieces can push or pull smaller pieces. There are four spots on the board where, if your piece lands, and is not orthogonal to one of your other pieces at the same time, it is removed from the board. Lastly, one your pieces next to a larger enemy piece is frozen (for you), again unless orthogonal to one of your pieces. Search Google for details.
Anyway, I found the game difficult, but my first impression was that, like Abalone, a good defensive position will probably beat any offensive position. With certain exceptions, such as Go, and the Gipf series, I am not much of an abstract/no randomness gamer, so this doesn't really appeal to me.
Spit/Speed: Whatever you call it. I played against my friend's 11 year old. I still got it, but I am slowing down every year. I measure my lifeblood by assessing how good my spit skills are.
Sat night was Purim dance party. Boomba boomba Boomba boomba.
Yehuda
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)