7 ms·

Bramcohen: A new card game

30 points by alexandros 17y ago

pw0ncakes 17y ago
Interesting concept. It makes the low cards valuable because they're more likely to be tossed, so you can pair or triple them up. There was a similar poker game I used to play with friends. This is similar to how, in Gin, face cards can be useful because they're the ones that an opponent is likely to toss early because their deadwood count (penalty to you if unmelded) is so high. Kings are usually crappy, but if you have a pair and an opponent tosses one (which he will if he can't do anything with it) you now have a meld.
Darmani 17y ago
This reminds me of Tichu. It shares the mechanic of trying to make poker hands from passes, except that said poker hands are then played in a bizarre but awesome combination of poker, bridge, and President's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichu
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  Very well regarded on the Geek. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/215/tichu http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/215/tichu
gjm11 17y ago
Reminiscent of the even simpler game Psychological Jujitsu. Take a pack of cards. Divide into suits. Discard the diamonds. Give one player all the spades and one all the clubs. Shuffle the hearts and put them face down. Now repeat 13 times: turn up a card from the pile of hearts; each player chooses one of their cards; they reveal them simultaneously; the player with the higher card gets to keep that heart. (If the players play equal cards, no one gets it.) When you're done, add up the values of the hearts each player has won (according to any convention you choose; different conventions give slightly different games; I prefer A..K = 1..13 points). Highest total wins. See http://www.icynic.com/~don/psych.html http://www.icynic.com/~don/psych.html for more information. (That page has diamonds and hearts the other way around from me, which of course makes no difference.) (I claimed that PJ is simpler than BC's game, but my description is longer than his. No contradiction: he imported the standard ordering of poker hands by reference, whereas I described all the rules of my game explicitly.)
- eru 17y ago
  You can also play tic-tac-toe with a twist: At the start of the game each player gets 100 silver pieces (100 AgP). At each turn the right to decide where the symbol (X or O) is placed goes to the highest bidder. Three in a row of your symbol wins --- but it can of course be of advantage to bid on your enemies turns to place his marks somewhere harmless out of the way. (I suggest a sealed-bid-first-price auction, where the bids aren't revealed --- just who was higher. This auctoion type needs a game master of course.) This auction mechanism can of course also be applied to other games like chess, or Diplomacy (http://www.diplom.org/Zine/W1995A/Payola/ http://www.diplom.org/Zine/W1995A/Payola/).
- tome 17y ago
  Also known as Gops or Goofspiel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goofspiel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goofspiel
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  If you enjoy that game, you might be interested in Reiner Knizia's High Society. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/220/high-society http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/220/high-society
  - eru 17y ago
    Or Kuhhandel.
mattmaroon 17y ago
Well, it's got only 2 rounds of betting and complete information. I can't say it without trying it, but it doesn't sound very dynamic. Also the action will be stalled because the cards have to remain there face up for some period of time, so there won't be constant motion like there is in hold'em. It sounds like correct strategy in most cases will be pretty obvious, though the choice of 8 cards with half passed is interesting as it prevents you from, say, holding a flush. I can see it be interesting in one spot: if you see your opponent has 4 hearts, you don't pass them one regardless, unless one of the other 4 cards they would be required to pass you make if they held the 4 hearts would make you a full house. Then it's just a game of chicken. It might be improved with the addition of hidden cards and splitting the action over 3-4 rounds of betting. Of course, I'm a little biased. After playing lots of 2-7 triple draw and Badugi, I'm honestly not even interested in poker variants with as little strategy as Texas Hold'em anymore.
- bramcohen 17y ago
  My game is more comparable to chinese poker than regular poker, as far as kind of strategy goes. The case of having to pick between several plausible hands is actually the common one. Someone who always picks the 'best' set of cards is very easy to beat. I have heard that lowball is a very interesting game, and it does appear possible to do a lot of reads based on available information, although there's a lot less to see if you're just watching than there is in hold'em.
  - pw0ncakes 17y ago
    Have you designed other card games? What do you think of the other internet-published esoteric card games (e.g. Ambition, Ludic)? Any favorites?
    - bramcohen 17y ago
      I've designed other games, but not many other good games. Mostly I invent mechanical puzzles. Ambition and Ludic are oddball concepts which inherently can't ever get mainstream appeal. I try to make things with much more widespread appeal.
raganwald 17y ago
One of the more interesting games I've seen is coöperative poker solitaire. In poker solitaire, you are dealt 25 cards and lay them out in a 5x5 grid. You try to make the best possible poker hands. The general scoring works by trying to make the bets possible hands working down from a royal flush. So if you have the cards for a royal flush, you have to make that. If you have the cards for a lesser straight flush in the same suit but can't make the royal flush, you don't have to make the lesser straight flush. Anyhow, the really interesting game is a coöperative two player variant. Thirteen cards are dealt to one player, twelve to another. Players cannot see each other's cards. The player with thirteen places a card on the table, then turns alternate. Once played, cards cannot be moved. At the conclusion of the game, the cards must be arranged in a 5x5 grid. So technically the first two cards could have three blank spaces between them diagonally, horizontally, or vertically. Pairs cannot communicate via any means other than the cards they choose to play. So to play well, pairs generally work out a system for signaling what they have, i.e. opening with a strong card and so forth.
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  Have you ever played Chinese Poker?

30 points by alexandros 17y ago

Interesting concept. It makes the low cards valuable because they're more likely to be tossed, so you can pair or triple them up. There was a similar poker game I used to play with friends. This is similar to how, in Gin, face cards can be useful because they're the ones that an opponent is likely to toss early because their deadwood count (penalty to you if unmelded) is so high. Kings are usually crappy, but if you have a pair and an opponent tosses one (which he will if he can't do anything with it) you now have a meld.

Darmani 17y ago

This reminds me of Tichu. It shares the mechanic of trying to make poker hands from passes, except that said poker hands are then played in a bizarre but awesome combination of poker, bridge, and President's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichu

pw0ncakes 17y ago
Very well regarded on the Geek. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/215/tichu http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/215/tichu

gjm11 17y ago

Reminiscent of the even simpler game Psychological Jujitsu. Take a pack of cards. Divide into suits. Discard the diamonds. Give one player all the spades and one all the clubs. Shuffle the hearts and put them face down. Now repeat 13 times: turn up a card from the pile of hearts; each player chooses one of their cards; they reveal them simultaneously; the player with the higher card gets to keep that heart. (If the players play equal cards, no one gets it.) When you're done, add up the values of the hearts each player has won (according to any convention you choose; different conventions give slightly different games; I prefer A..K = 1..13 points). Highest total wins. See http://www.icynic.com/~don/psych.html http://www.icynic.com/~don/psych.html for more information. (That page has diamonds and hearts the other way around from me, which of course makes no difference.) (I claimed that PJ is simpler than BC's game, but my description is longer than his. No contradiction: he imported the standard ordering of poker hands by reference, whereas I described all the rules of my game explicitly.)

eru 17y ago
You can also play tic-tac-toe with a twist: At the start of the game each player gets 100 silver pieces (100 AgP). At each turn the right to decide where the symbol (X or O) is placed goes to the highest bidder. Three in a row of your symbol wins --- but it can of course be of advantage to bid on your enemies turns to place his marks somewhere harmless out of the way. (I suggest a sealed-bid-first-price auction, where the bids aren't revealed --- just who was higher. This auctoion type needs a game master of course.) This auction mechanism can of course also be applied to other games like chess, or Diplomacy (http://www.diplom.org/Zine/W1995A/Payola/ http://www.diplom.org/Zine/W1995A/Payola/).
tome 17y ago
Also known as Gops or Goofspiel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goofspiel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goofspiel
pw0ncakes 17y ago
If you enjoy that game, you might be interested in Reiner Knizia's High Society. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/220/high-society http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/220/high-society
- eru 17y ago
  Or Kuhhandel.

mattmaroon 17y ago

Well, it's got only 2 rounds of betting and complete information. I can't say it without trying it, but it doesn't sound very dynamic. Also the action will be stalled because the cards have to remain there face up for some period of time, so there won't be constant motion like there is in hold'em. It sounds like correct strategy in most cases will be pretty obvious, though the choice of 8 cards with half passed is interesting as it prevents you from, say, holding a flush. I can see it be interesting in one spot: if you see your opponent has 4 hearts, you don't pass them one regardless, unless one of the other 4 cards they would be required to pass you make if they held the 4 hearts would make you a full house. Then it's just a game of chicken. It might be improved with the addition of hidden cards and splitting the action over 3-4 rounds of betting. Of course, I'm a little biased. After playing lots of 2-7 triple draw and Badugi, I'm honestly not even interested in poker variants with as little strategy as Texas Hold'em anymore.

bramcohen 17y ago
My game is more comparable to chinese poker than regular poker, as far as kind of strategy goes. The case of having to pick between several plausible hands is actually the common one. Someone who always picks the 'best' set of cards is very easy to beat. I have heard that lowball is a very interesting game, and it does appear possible to do a lot of reads based on available information, although there's a lot less to see if you're just watching than there is in hold'em.
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  Have you designed other card games? What do you think of the other internet-published esoteric card games (e.g. Ambition, Ludic)? Any favorites?
  - bramcohen 17y ago
    I've designed other games, but not many other good games. Mostly I invent mechanical puzzles. Ambition and Ludic are oddball concepts which inherently can't ever get mainstream appeal. I try to make things with much more widespread appeal.

raganwald 17y ago

One of the more interesting games I've seen is coöperative poker solitaire. In poker solitaire, you are dealt 25 cards and lay them out in a 5x5 grid. You try to make the best possible poker hands. The general scoring works by trying to make the bets possible hands working down from a royal flush. So if you have the cards for a royal flush, you have to make that. If you have the cards for a lesser straight flush in the same suit but can't make the royal flush, you don't have to make the lesser straight flush. Anyhow, the really interesting game is a coöperative two player variant. Thirteen cards are dealt to one player, twelve to another. Players cannot see each other's cards. The player with thirteen places a card on the table, then turns alternate. Once played, cards cannot be moved. At the conclusion of the game, the cards must be arranged in a 5x5 grid. So technically the first two cards could have three blank spaces between them diagonally, horizontally, or vertically. Pairs cannot communicate via any means other than the cards they choose to play. So to play well, pairs generally work out a system for signaling what they have, i.e. opening with a strong card and so forth.

mattmaroon 17y ago
Have you ever played Chinese Poker?