Weekend Gaming

Rachel was invited to teach in Beit Shemesh for shabbat. Meanwhile, my parents were away for shabbat. So we stayed in their house.

Naturally, somehow the house experienced an electrical outage, followed by a plumbing leak in the ceiling while we were there, which resulted in my having to explain to my skeptical father that "it just happened" and "we didn't touch anything".

Dinner at friends (the Ehrmans), and lunch at friends (the Fensters).

Team Hearts

I taught Team Hearts to Tal and two of the Fenster children. All had played Hearts before. Team Hearts is like regular Hearts, except that you always pass across to your partner. Shooting the moon is still an individual act, but give points only to your opponents, of course.

Just about any card game is much better when played as a team game. From being able to signal with the pass, to the subtle play of giving bad cards to your opponents rather than to your partner, the tactics of the game are heightened immensely.

Nevertheless, Tal didn't like it because you can't "dump" your bad cards on your partner.

Rules of Card Games

I didn't play any other games, but I saw this delightful book at the Elkins, yet more friends of ours. It is one of those classic books on card games, dating back to the late 1800s. As such, it includes not only rules of play but chapters on organizing card parties, teaching games to children, and card play etiquette.

It is quite amusing.

Children's first card games are, according to the book, at age four, where they learn to pick up the cards and throw them across the house.

When planning parties, if you have four strong Bridge players and four weaker players, sit the strong players together and the weaker players together, but try to avoid explaining to anyone why you did so. Also, don't let couple play together, to avoid arguments.

Apparently, the hostess (sic) decides not only on the games played but also on all the rules of play, so as to avoid the participants getting into any arguments about what to play.

And furthermore, it was as true then as it is today: regardless of how well you know the rules, no one likes to wait around for a slow player mumbling to himself over every play, "Oh, I just don't know what to play." [emphasis the book's]

I didn't get to read more, but I hope to borrow it when my friend is done with it.

Looking for Game Books

By the way, if anyone has any books about games of any sort, I am always interested in acquiring them.

Game News

Singapore's Pitstop Cafe lists five things it likes about board games.

The 15th World Computer-Chess Championship and the 12th Computer Olympiad will be held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in conjunction with the Computer Games Workshop 2007 (CGW2007).

Computer programs will compete in the following games:

Abalone
Amazons
Arimaa
Backgammon
Bao
Bridge
Chinese Chess
8x8 Checkers
Clobber
Computational Pool
Connect6
Diplomacy
Dominoes
Dots and Boxes
10x10 Draughts
Gipf
Go
9x9 Go
Hex
Kriegspiel
Lines of Action
6x7 OCTI
9x9 OCTI
Othello
Poker
Renju
Scrabble
Shogi

Other notes:

The game of Renju, claimed to be solved, is still welcome since we have not seen a fully-operational program on internet that plays perfectly. Moreover, we are willing to host more games, such as Ataxx, Dvonn, Mediocrity, Onyx, Tamsk, TwixT and Zèrtz but we do not know of the existence of adequately playing programs. We are awaiting suggestions and proposals of programmers before we include them in the official list given above.

Don't Drink & Drive is a game that tries to discourage drunk driving, apparently. At a website called "Drinking Fun".

And in more fallout from the war in Iraq, nightly games of Backgammon by displaced Iraqi refugees give their Egyptian hosts insomnia.

Yehuda

In Memory of the Magic Rat: Jason Sato

Serious post today, folks. Yesterday saw the death of one of my favorite game bloggers, Jason Sato aka The Magic Rat.

I never met Jason, never talked to him, never even corresponded with him. Yet, like so many others now who choose to share their lives, thoughts, and feelings with the world, we "met" in ways other than physical.

Jason and I both gamed and blogged. We both liked Puerto Rico and disliked Fluxx.

Jason managed to game several times every week with friends from the Arizona Boardgamers, at the Game Depot, Pyle Adult Center, Game Den, Bookman's Used Books, Gamers Inn, Gamer's Edge, or friends such as Scott Bailey or Llarry and Steph Amrose. and every Wednesday and weekend he would reports in loving detail the games and friends that connected with him. Lately he played a lot of Hero Clix, Horror Clix, and Tichu.

From his writings, he seems to have been a gentleman and a good friend. I regret that I will never now have the honor of knowing him.

According to the Arizona games mailing list, he was well-liked by the gaming community. He suffered a stroke while playing games at the Games Depot. The Game Depot is allegedly planning something in his memory at the store for the evening of the 21st.

Jason ended every one of his blog entries with "Peace, out."

Peace, out, Jason.

Yehuda

Why You Will Never Win a Game of Set

Played a game of Set yesterday at a picnic with my daughter and a random kid.

"Games Are Made By Machines"

The kid was confused that I had brought games to the picnic and that I like to play games. I'm an adult, after all.

I look forward to this sort of encounter.

I told him that I play games, run a game group, design games, write about games, and so on, and he refused to believe me.

"People don't make games," says he.

Blink. Blink.

"They don't? Who makes games?" I asked.

"Games are made by machines!" he triumphantly declares.

"Uh ... who designs the games so that the machines will make them? Who makes the machines?"

"No one designs games. The games are already there. Machines just make them!"

This is where we stand, ladies and gentleman. All games that ever will be created have been created, according to the masses. Forget the 25,000 new board games created in the last 40 years; every time a journalist writes about board games, he or she is referring to the games created more than 40 years ago - with the exception of the three or four blockbuster games since then (Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, Scene It) or variations on the old ones (Monopoly: Lord of the Rings edition).

Why not describe all video games as simply Pong and Space Invaders, with a few exceptions?

Set

Set consists of an 81 card deck. Each card has 1, 2, or 3 items. The items on each card are either ovals, diamonds, or wavy. The items are either solid, lined, or empty. The items on the card are colored either purple, green or red.

12 cards are laid out. The first person to see a "set" calls out "Set!" and collects the three cards that make up the set. 3 more cards are laid out to replace them. The game ends when the deck is gone and no more sets remain.

A "set" consists of three cards where a) the number of items on each card are the same (1,1,1) or all different (1,2,3); b) the colors of the items on each card are the same (red, red, red) or all different (red, green, purple); c) the fillings on each card are the same or different; and d) the shapes on each card are the same or different.

The challenge is that the brain likes to pick up patterns that don't exist, and you constantly have to find real sets from the "close, but not a set" that pops into your head.

You Will Never Win This Game

It is conventional wisdom that some people get the game of Set and some don't, and that's the way it is.

You can train to get faster fingers in video games and Spit. You can train to have steadier fingers in Jenga. You can learn the patterns in Go and Chess so as to avoid repeating your mistakes. But you will never get better at Set if it doesn't click.

Why is this? Is it self-doubt? The challenge is just too overwhelming? Or is there no effective training technique for that part of the brain?

I think not.

I think you can train yourself if you try methodically enough. Maybe set out different types of sets in different arrangements. Then do the same thing with 4 cards, with 5 cards, and so on, upping the number each time. Or try playing the game with only the purple cards, or only the diamond cards, for a while.

But no one really wants to spend that kind of time, just to get good at a game. The funny thing is, is that the brain power you build getting good at Set will probably come to help you at future moments in your life.

What other games are reputed to be "impossible" for some people?

Game News

Ottawa Citizen talks up playing with your kids.

Speaking of which, Youthlinks is a Maine-based organization that encourages youth and adult interaction. They organize events, such as "Board Game Buddies", which gets kids playing with the elderly, for the benefit of both. Calendar of events.

Jew News

Schools in the UK are shying away from teaching about The Holocaust because the material is "sensitive".

If you don't read Renegade Rebbetzin, you should. Her latest post about the seder and its mishaps is a good intro.

Yehuda

March Board and Card Game Patents

Gaming machines with board game theme

Apparently, Monopoly and so on in a Vegas style machine.

Board game and method of play

Some sort of three-dimensional game with questions. It appears to be educational, for teenagers, and includes some electronics to display the score.

Play four poker

Poker, where you can only select 4 cards out of 5. Why? I don't know. To eliminate flushes, straights, and full-houses? Furthermore, you play against the house, who gets 6 cards to choose from, instead of 5.

Roulette alternative card game

This game kind of simulates Roulette using a deck of cards. I thought the fun part of Roulette was watching the ball go round and round.

Systems and methods for skill game awards

Nope. I don't get the point of this one. It claims to be a method of determining how much to pay out after a game of skill. The answer: randomly.

To summarize an example:

1) Player pays a buy-in amount to allow him to play a game.

2) Apparatus generates a randomly selected award amount for the current game that a player may win by successfully completing a game of skill.

3) Apparatus generates a randomly selected amount that is to be added to the award amount generated in (2) if an amount greater than or equal to said randomly selected amount exists in an adjustment pool. Add the amount so determined to award amount generated in (2) and subtract the amount from the adjustment pool.

4) Display total award amount that can be won by successfully completing a skill game by a player.

5) Begin a game of skill that can be completed successfully by an average person. If said game of skill in (5) is completed successfully by a player, pay the displayed award amount. If the game of skill is not completed successfully, so indicate and player loses amount of buy-in.

Duhhhh. But wait, here's another example:

1) Player pays a buy-in amount to allow him to play a game.

2) Apparatus generates a randomly selected award amount for the current game that a player may win by successfully completing a game of skill.

3) Apparatus determines if amount returned to players over multiple games is less than a predetermined amount. If said amount returned to players is less than said predetermined amount then reduce skill requirements to complete a predetermined game of skill. If the amount returned to players is greater than or equal to the predetermined amount then provide no adjustment to said skill requirements to complete a predetermined game of skill.

4) Display total award amount that can be won by successfully completing a skill game by a player.

5) Begin a game of skill that can be completed successfully by an average person.

6) If said game of skill in (5) is completed successfully by a player, pay the displayed award amount. If the game of skill is not completed successfully, so indicate and player loses amount of buy-in.

Duhhhh squared.

Entertainment game

I like this one. The guy is apparently sick of "Survivor"-like TV programs:

Among the most popular programs appearing on television recently are "contests", most often pitting one or more of a group of players or contestants against another. Although initially there may be a moderate level of cooperation among one or more of the players, such alliances are short-lived because there can finally be only one "winner" in that type of program structure. Self-interest, scheming, mistrusts, half-truths and sometimes outright lies and treacheries are often the main characteristics of such programs. While these characteristics mimic some of the less professional characteristics of business and of overall American and like societies at this time, emphasizing them repeatedly on TV is arguably not the best direction to take for a medium with such a high degree of influence on values. Besides, one of the major roles of entertainment is to provide respite from everyday; such negative shows do nothing toward that goal.

He instead lauds the opposite kind of program, "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?":

One glimmer of hope that approached emphasizing what were once the more traditional and kinder American values of friendliness, cooperation, trust and truth first appeared a few TV seasons ago as the highly popular "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?".TM. quiz show.

So his "invention" is kind of the opposite of Survivor, where the player brings more people into the game to help him win. I guess the idea is that the player has to balance trying to win it all for himself, and possibly failing, vs sharing the winnings, with a better chance of success.

Another dumb patent, but a nice sentiment.

Card game

An interactive poker game. Each player is dealt a bunch of cards and tosses some of them into a communal discard pile. These are then flipped over and players can swap their cards with the discarded cards until everyone passes. High hand wins.


Two more March patents I accidentally included in February's post.

Yehuda

Checkmate and the Buddha

A cute board game related romance called Checkmate on Youtube.

Off the Grid on Joystiq reviews RoboRally.

The Escapist covers a few aspects of games and religion.

Speaking of religion and games, I've never covered Buddhist games ...

Karma Chakra: Karma Chakra "gives players his/her own freedom to visualize, imagine, think & discuss about Buddhism at many different levels".

Buddha Wheel: "The Game of Many Lives".

Some say that Go is the ultimate Buddhist game.

If you want a more cosmopolitan religious game, you can try the Trivia game Enlighten, "an interactive game that entices people to explore, dialog and expand their spiritual knowledge of the world".

Yehuda

Games Day Session Report

The Games Day Session report can be found here. Games played: 24/7, Amun-Re, Bridge, Carcassonne: the Castle City, Chess, Die Macher, El Grande, Geschenkt, Lost Cities, Nautilus, Netrunner, Power Grid, Princes of Florence, Santiago, Settlers of Catan, Shogi, World of Warcraft, Zertz.

- 21 participants. Some new faces.

- First play of Carcassonne: the Castle. We're not impressed.

- The world's quickest game of Netrunner, ever (a first round win).

- An 8 hour plus game of World of Warcraft that didn't even finish. Other games also get abandoned.

- 3 rounds of Die Macher.

Yehuda

Puerto Rico Tournament Results

The results of the 1000th Post Puerto Rico Tournament are in, and the winner is David Klein.

Game	Yehuda	David	Nadine	Gabe	Seth
Yehuda1	52/20	47/10	42/05	37/00	--/--
Yehuda2	46/09	--/--	48/11	51/19	37/00
Yehuda3	49/08	51/10	52/16	--/--	41/00
Yehuda4	57/18	58/19	--/--	58/24	39/00
Yehuda5	--/--	60/18	50/03	52/05	47/00
Total	55	57	35	48	00

Congratulations, David.

Game Day just finished; more on that tomorrow.

Yehuda