Anyway, there are several things in piquet that make me confused. 

Like, I don't see much reason in carte blanche and even less so in the optional carte rouge feature. The idea of taking the trick only by the card of the same suit also sounds immature to my mind. 

All in all, I have started creating my own card game that should be more balanced, more reasonable and just. 

What card games do you personally play and what are your likes/dislikes concerning their rules? 

Way back when in the 70's and 80's I played in quite a few BRIDGE tournaments. My "surrogate" mom, is a casual bridge player and she won't play with me, because I know too much and see way too much and can discuss the bidding fairly OK. I imagine that she thinks she is being second guessed, which is not the case, but the bidding is about communication with your partner, not sitting there and "taking it".

The best hand I ever played was in a tournament in Portland, where the 2 folks opposite us, thought they were studs and could play a different style of the game, and it involves being able to bid freely with no interruptions, and I pulled a stink bid that blew them out ... they had a grand slam, and got nothing for it, since i did not lose the grand slam points ... down 2 doubled redoubled was less ... meaning ... I took top for that hand and even was given a gold point for the bid. Had an 11 card suit in my hand and the opponents had all the other points. But the stink bid destroyed their communication and they even called a director that watched the hand, and signaled that there was nothing wrong with the bid and I had a justifiable bid.

Complicated game sometimes, but the inability to communicate in a tournament is a KILLER. And you can't panic, like those guys did because you know it's gonna happen sooner or later!

I love card games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot_card_games

These are the ones I love most, but I play also smaller ones like

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/56786/kuhhandel-master

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12942/no-thanks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohnanza

etc. 

I'm interested in rules, and I invented games as a child, but I figured out I'm better at finding and correcting weaknesses in other people's rules than putting together own games. I know a number of game inventors and have occasionally caused some changes in their rules. When playing Barbu we changed the evaluation of the "domino" contract because I realised that with the rules I learned (which are pretty much those given on the Wikipedia page, there are variants) the domino contract is overvalued and can win you the whole game even if you do quite bad otherwise (or the opposite).  

there is only one card game in which card luck is totally excluded, and that's this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duplicate_bridge" rel="nofollow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duplicate_bridge

there really is no card luck whatever; it is all skills. Friede and I both love this game and are very good at it. it should be a game after your heart, Lewian, because an important part of the game is the bidding by which the players try to tell their partners what cards they hold. there are also certain signals during the actual card play by which the partner can be told what cards you have.

bridge is as complicated a game as chess, and indeed many chess players also play bridge

I was going to mention Duplicate Bridge. I've never actually played this but I do enjoy reading the Bridge column in the newspaper as well as Bridge books. I like its fairness and purity. It is the ultimate in fair because your team and your opponent team are playing the exact same hands (even in chess, one player has the first move). It is pure in the sense that unlike Five Hundred, the deck of cards is the 52-card standard deck which are all dealt to the players (there is no kitty), and the value of each card is simply its face-value (there are no bowers or jokers, but there are trumps), and there are no weird bids like Misère. Also, Duplicate Bridge removes from Rubber Bridge points scored for hands containing four or five honour cards (which are purely based on the luck of the draw).

 

However, Bridge has one defect: It needs four players to bid the hands, but only three players actually play the hands.

 

 

 

 

I have learned bridge long ago but unfortunately only very rarely had opportunity to play it, so I haven't reached any stage beyond total beginner. (Obviously playing lots of card games makes me a better bridge beginner than most beginners, but still just a beginner.) Reading on "duplicate bridge", this apparently needs a tournament or properly sizeable group, and I don't see myself having that in the near future. Also I wouldn't agree that "card luck is totally excluded" because you're still also scored against people who have different hands, aren't you? The fact that all scores are relative means that there is some standardisation and improved comparability, but still conditions are not the same for everyone, if I understand it correctly. Surely you depend on the way of playing of the opponents on your table compared to other opponents on other tables, although you may not want to call that "card luck". There's probabilities involved, so there's some randomness, no way out of that. Which for me by the way isn't a problem, if anything it's something good. I don't adhere to the philosophy that the best one always should win and shouldn't ever be stopped by fate from winning. Obviously I don't like games in which it doesn't matter much what you do because they're dominated by randomness; there should be a reward for skill at least in percentages, however I think it's more fun to play with players of varying skills (which I usually do as I play with general game lovers, not normally with specialists for any particular game) if a game comes with a fair amount of winning variance.   

 

 

you are wrong, Lewian; card luck really is completely excluded. let me explain how.

suppose there is an international tournament with 32 nations competing: Italy, the USA, Germany, France etc. each team has two pairs playing in the tournament. the teams are paired against each other, for example USA vs Italy, Germany vs France etc. the teams play in two different rooms, the so-called "open room" and "closed room".

the 4 seats at the bridge table are named after the four geographic directions. in the open room USA will sit N/S against Italy who sit E/W. in the closed room it is the other way round and so on for all other teams. this means there are 16 tables in the open room and 16 in the closed room.

let's say they play a round with 30 boards. each of these 30 boards is randomly generated and then created 32 times. all teams that sit N/S will get the same cards for each round, and of course E/W too. so all teams will have to play the exact same deals in both directions.

the results of these teams for each board will then be compared and rated (with a complicated system I won't go into).

this means that for playing this first round of 30 boards you need 30 times 32 or 960 decks of cards! for the whole tournament you need tens of thousands of decks of cards because all boards will be prepared in advance.

I hope this makes you understand why there is no card luck at all in bridge

Being an expert at poker will not help you to be a good Bridge player. Neither will being an expert at Rummy. But being a good player of any of the Whist family of games will help with at least the basics of playing Bridge. But even this will not take you much beyond the beginner level.

 

 

Skat, Tarot, and Barbu go some way, certainly more than Poker and Rummy. Obviously I will not have a chance against expert players, but in a round of beginners I should be quite strong.

Hi,

I lose ... I didn't use the word duplicate!

Well, no matter I have my points from the many tournaments ... and the communication is the difference. One other tournament in Eastern Oregon out of the Mitchel Rotation (28 hands) my partner and I came in 3rd of about 30 teams ... and we only had 2 opening hands each ... but we were smart and clean on defense and were able to communicate enough in bids to get the better results.

Agreed ... luck out the door, and if you complaint about not having the opening hands, in essence, you are losing one of the strongest parts of the game.

^ ditto. 

Same with Euchre, cribbage, and rummy. 

 

Whether or not any game can help one to play Bridge depends on whether or not the particular skills required to play Bridge can be supplied by the other game. Due to the peculiarities of Bridge, not even closely related trick-taking games would be of much help. For example, one peculiarity of Bridge is that declarer plays not only his or her hand but also partner's hand, which is visible to all players. This single feature of the game has a profound effect on the skill required to play the game. This is because in other games, one doesn't have sufficient control over partner's hand to be able to orchestrate complicated card play sequences that go by names such as "triple squeeze" or "grand coup". These are skills needed by Bridge players that would not be gained by playing other games. Oddly, this limitation applies the other way also. That is, the expert Bridge player with all the sophisticated techniques in his or her armoury would not be able to use those techniques in a game such as Whist because Whist does not provide the control necessary to execute those techniques.

 

 

Not sure what point you want to make here. I said I'm at beginners level so that is that. I have learned lots of very different games and am good at picking up different elements in a new game pretty quickly. All good games have unique elements and others that are more or less related to other games. The way it works is not "I learnt this-and-that from Tarot, Poker or whatnot, and I just reproduce that and will be a good bridge player". It's rather "learning to learn", to quote Gregory Bateson. You may or may not believe me, it doesn't matter really.

Edit: Funnily I just became aware of your "I was thinking about thinking but it really didn't get me very far." I sense some connection to "learning to learn", and this stuff can take you some way if you do it right. Thinking about thinking taught me where to stop in many occasions, which can be quite helpful. I know I'm digressing...  

 

I'm not sure, either. However, I kind of suspect that you and I see the structure of a game in a somewhat similar way.

 

I am definitely not an expert Bridge player, but the structure of the game and the various techniques of both declarer and defence intrigue me.

 

 

Lewian wrote: "learning to learn"

 

Learning to learn is quite important, and I wish I had been better taught that when I was younger.

 

 

Strictly for two players. 

Deck of 54 cards (13*4=52 cards plus Red joker and Black joker) is used. 

A game consists of a number of rounds (maximum - 8). 

The goal of the game is to reach the score of 1,000 points for one of the players. Once it is done, the game ends immediately. 

Every player is given 27 cards at the very beginning of the round. Therefore, every player knows exactly what cards the opponent has. So, there's no real special need to hide them somehow. 

The round consists of a number of turns - normally, 25 (unless, the game ends earlier in the last round). 

The player that starts the turn is called a goer. The one that puts a card in response to a goer, is called a beater. 

The player that has Red Joker, starts first, go first. 

There's no such concept as winning a trick, winning a turn. Simply, the player, or often both of them, gets some portion from the total of 10 points for each turn played. 

Discarding is made before the turns stage, at the beginning of the game. Every player puts all of his jokers on the table, the opponent must throw one card (not a joker!) for each of the opponent's jokers in response. 

All jokers must be put away at this stage. It means, after discarding, every player will have 25 cards. 

Then the trick taking, the turns begin. 

There are no trumps in the game. Ace is a senior card for each suit. 

The trick taking (I prefer to say in a more untricky manner, the turns playing go) works like this: 

If the beater puts the card of the same suit and greater in value than the goer's card: Beater gets 10 points, Goer - 0 points.

If the card is of the same color of the suit and greater in value: Beater gets 6, Goer gets 4 points. 

Other color of the suit, greater value: Beater - 5, Goer - 5. 

---

Equal value, the same color: Beater - 3, Goer - 7. 

Equal value, other color: Beater - 2, Goer - 8. 

---

Less in value, the same suit: Beater - 1, Goer - 9. 

Less in value, other suits: Beater - 0, Goer - 10. 

In short: 

The scoring always begins with the beater, so there're no draws even in theory. 

To make things more rational and foolproofy, the balls are added . 

At every turn, the played card of greater value (2 through 10 as they are, Jack - 11, Queen - 12, King - 13, Ace -14) gives to its (former) owner the ball score, which is the difference of values between two played cards. 

For example, if one player puts 4 of spades and the other responds with jack of hearts - both get 5 points and the latter one gets 11-4=7 balls. 

The winner gain is calculated thus: (twice the points of the loser) plus (five times the balls of the winner) minus (thrice the sum of the values of the cards of both players that remained unplayed in the last round). 

Then, speaking of (the) bridge... 

Four 54-card decks are used for the game. The first one after being shuffled, is used for the first round, the second one after being shuffled, is used for the second round. Then, the cards given to the players in the first round, are mirrored in the third one (that is, the second player gets the cards given to the first player in the first round, the first player gets the cards of the second player). The cards given to the players in the second round are mirrored in the fourth one. The same with next four rounds and next two decks. 

Ehm... there are no absolutely-just games in the whole universe. There's always a moment of psychology, nervousness. People get tired, and certainly they are more tired in the third round than in the first one. 

But still, I feel my game's weird but it may actually work. It definitely requires a lot of time and thinking and patience. My view was the one of the guys in their chairs in the evening slowly smoking Cafe Creme (at least) and slowly sipping De Kuyper Triple Sec (at least). 

I have an idea of writing a computer program that plays it all versus a user, and versus itself. 

Well, what are your opinions on this? Too sophisticated, too long, too boring, too nerdy, too silly? Or too great to be true? (well, that's my opinion). It's really interesting to me. 

P.S.: Sure, my English is rather poor and bad. I'm really sorry. 

Well, personally I'm not that great on games where everybody has all information, and neither I am on 2 persons games. I like the more complex interaction between more than two players. But that's just personal taste, it doesn't mean your game is bad.

The points system is complex enough that I don't see immediately how this has to be played successfully, but the danger here is that someone with reasonable analytic ability could figure out pretty quickly what to do in every situation, and then there are no interesting decisions left. This may or may not be so, personally I'd need to play a few rounds to see how it plays out, but I won't, because as I said before it's not the general kind of game that excites me.

Players have quite a bit to do jotting down points, relative to the actual gameplay.

I have never played it myself either, in whichever form, as of now . The idea of distinguishing the senior cards of other suits, the colors of the suits et al came to me directly in the process of playing piquet versus my smartphone. There, only 32 cards are used, 7 thru Ace, no trumps, and cards should be beaten by the senior card of the same suit, no other way to beat the card. It means, with Aces and Kings and Queens of the wrong suit the player loses everything, and it looks a bit irrational at times. 

Anyway, I think I'll finally make some sort of a computer program. And it will decide and solve the topic for me. 

Thank you for the response! 

I am not an expert in bridge and sure I may miss something, but I don't see how the partners' talking to each other to find out the other's cards may look... nice. It's kinda about cheating the opponents even when officially it isn't. 

My view is that the perfect creation in the niche of the playing card games must be perfectly open, no hidden information, every player cares only for his/her own cards, everybody stands for him/herself. No kitty. 

That is my idea. Certainly, the player that has better and faster access to the better and faster computer has more chances to win. Well, yes. 

I patiently googled over and over again trying to find  at least one page on the cons of bridge. No cons, it seems! That's stupid, after all! We're living in a material world, it's not perfect. No perfect game, at all. Everything is flawed. 

To me, there're such aspects as: 

- no possibility to revert the seniority of the cards (as in bid whist the game); 

- no possibility to play for the least number of tricks taken to win, no misere or the sort that is (Russian game preferans comes to my mind first in this respect); 

- in case of four pass'es the aforementioned preferans turns to playing misere-alike trick-taking; 

- the very idea of legally cheating the opponents concerning your and the partner's cards... sounds not that fine for me... 

I tried to play bridge here and there, but I always feel its artificial greatness, so to say. Well, yes, solid tournaments offer objective ranking - but that's not about the greatness of this certain game, that's about conducting the tournaments. That's my personal impression, after all. 

Strip Poker !

What I like about the game?

People get naked !

What I hate about the game?

My buddies have stopped coming over for card night.

I mean, really, creating material idols is such a stupid idea. Everytime I read or hear something about bridge it's ecstatic speeches of how supreme it is. It almost makes me believe in illuminati and reptiloids  'cause such enormous enthusiasm just looks abnormal. Yes, the game is pretty intriguing - because you have to guess what cards the other three players have. And you - let's face it like men - have to try to cheat the two opponents by making them feel like you have said to your partner about your cards less than you've actually done. I have no doubt that people adore to fool one another. 

Yes, there are tons of analytic books on bridge, mainly they consist of the description of ways you may use to cheat the opponents during bidding. Again, the same conventions may be installed in any other gameplay of any other multiplayer game. It is not the core of the game itself, it is a trailer if you will.