I’m surprised there isn’t a separate category for card games in the SdJ. There’s no way a card game could win as it is. I think they are missing an opportunity but not awarding a Card Game of the Year.

Say it with me now, S-D-J-K!

Larry,

I share your high regard (love?) of card games. I was brought up on 2 player cribbage with my grandfather and he helped forge an enjoyment and appreciation of card games.

Card games are the de-facto way for my evening gaming sessions to end. Firstly, they are usually games that we are all familiar with. Secondly, we draw on past positive feelings for those games as they evoke good memories from earlier gaming sessions. I think the other aspects that provide this positive spin is that they are usually simple to learn and difficult to master, probably with some degree of luck in them that makes you laugh. And this means that we have great fun.

Top of my pile in the multi player card game is Hattrick. I have played this game hundreds of times and I have never become bored of it. When I played it with folks from overseas at Essen, it didn’t seem so good. Why? Because the past feelings for the game were not there, with a different ambience. It was still interesting, but not as much fun. My ideal Hattrick game would be with my regular Friday evening crowd at my house. I haven’t played much Tichu, but I suspect the devotees of that have a similar warm feeling to their ideal group in the right setting.

Recently Fettnapf has been a hit. We tried a 5 player game last night and it was a success as the players eventually fell on the numbers that gave you the islands. It shows early promise of matching the fun levels that make an evening session work so well.

Back to your theme of why no awards – other than Fairplay. I think the difficulty is that the definition of card game is so limiting. Adlung games clearly count as card games, as does Tichu and Hattrick, but to be a “pure� card game does this restrict it to no other gaming elements or pieces, which would eliminate San Juan from your top 10 games, for example. I’d be happy to have a bit of breathing room for the definition, but then we would need to consider 2 player and multi player card games. Mystery Rummy would count in both categories and I know from past IGA discussions where we have had to decide on a game being more on one side or the other. This isn’t to say this should not be possible. But we also need to consider yet another award for games. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, as there are so many, one more won’t make much of a difference, bit some people seem to. Broadly I’d favour making card games more prominent in our gaming world, but I think for now they are the poor relation of board gaming reliant on niche parts of a gaming session.

And just you prove a point, suppose you’ve got 4 hours of gaming time. You could play 8 half an hour games of various card games or one chunky game, one light game and one or 2 card games. Which one do you prefer?

Other thoughts -
Il Principe was my favourite release of Essen of the ones I played. It has maintained a high reputation so far after only a few games. Thanks for the take on James’ site - it will be interesting to hear his views on gaming life.

Alan

I very much agree that card games are sadly underrated.  We often play card games as a filler or closer, especially the “painful decesion” trick taking games such as Sticheln or David & Goliath.  Njet!, Farfalia and Mückenstich are also great fillers which, sadly, don’t see nearly enough table time.

And Alan How is perfectly correct - Hattrick is by far and away “the top of the pile” as far as multiplayer card games are concerned.

Ward, the commonly supposed reason that the SdJ never goes to a card game is that the purpose of the award is to increase profits for the game industry and the profit margin for a heftier boardgame is greater than that of a card game.  This is NOT in the charter of the award, it’s just what people assume.  Creating a separate award for card games would require that the jury admits that these designs have no real chance of winning the main award, but I suppose they could just point to the previous results if they really wanted to do it.  My guess is we won’t see anything like this in the forseeable future, but I agree, it would be nice (and would provide an additional profit stream).  Alan’s point about the difficulty in categorizing designs as “card games” is a good one, but the Jury could pretty much do what it wants as far as classifying is concerned (although it would be fun if publishers started campaigning for a particular game to fall into one category or another, much like film studios campaign for certain actors to be eligible for a leading or supporting role for the Oscars).

Alan and Brian, none of the “painful trick takers” (I like that categorization) ever really took hold with our group, including Hattrick, which I think we only played once or twice.  We are very much a Tichu group (I’m one of the few abstainers) and if four players are going to play a card game, most will consider it an opportunity lost if Tichu doesn’t hit the table.  With three, Schnäppchen-Jagd or Flaschenteufel is the usual choice.  With five, we’ll go with For Sale or Money if time is short--otherwise, we usually go with a boardgame.  Outside of Tichu, the only card games of any weight that get consistent play is San Juan and Was Sticht? (although we used to play Klunker quite a bit).  I’m hopeful that games like Control Nut and Ohio will start getting more table time.  And one of these days, we’ll devote enough time to Mu to figure out just how the hell to play it.

Larry- when you play San Juan for 2 do you remove the Library, or only use it once each turn or do you play it normally?
Thanks for the compliments on Mystery Rummy (your check is in the mail)

“And one of these days, we’ll devote enough time to Mu to figure out just how the hell to play it.”

We’ll probably not get around to Mu until we all retire and have the time ...

Mike, I play San Juan strictly with the rules in the box.  As my comment indicated, I don’t think the Guild Hall is over-powered and I’ve never thought to make any adjustments with the Library in the two-player game.  Then again, I rarely play SJ with two.  Most of my two-player gaming these days is with my wife and while I’m slowly getting her more comfortable with less fluffy games, I still avoid designs with a built-in learning curve (which SJ certainly has, since you need to become familiar with all the cards to be able to play competently).  She does love her Mystery Rummy, though!  (That’s another nice thing about the MR series--outside of Jack the Ripper, all the games are very accessible and play very well first time out of the box.  Hey, might as well see if I can eke another check out of you, Mike!) :-)

"For Sale – My favorite super-short filler (although Geschenkt is close).  The double auction system works really well and the game is always fun.  I prefer the rules from the 1997 version, thank you”

Where are these rules? Got a link?

Good ol’ Game Cabinet is still a precious resource:  http://www.gamecabinet.com/rulesText/ForSale.txt

The main difference between the original and the Uberplay version is that you only have to *match* the previous bid in the first round in order to stay in the bidding, not exceed it.  As a result, it’s usually referred to as “poker-style bidding”.  If no one raises the bid and it comes around to the player who originally raised it, he must raise it (or pass).

The other difference is the card distribution.  The original came with 20 Building cards (one copy of each number from 1-20) and 20 Check cards (two zeroes, and one copy of each number from 3-20).  I’m not 100% sure about the Check distribution, but I can check it when I get home.