A TWO CARD TRICK

        My parents have just dug up some old notebook of mine, and some of
the contents were quite interesting. Various attempts at designing the ideal
amusement arcade (with a predictably complex, but generous, payment scheme),
a goodly number of video game reviews, each of which have thirteen different
percentage marks representing crucial facts like how convenient the control
system is, how extensive the high-score tables are and how enjoyable the
game is to watch, and several of my early attempts at designing card games.
Also included were predictions for the '87/'88 football season (Liverpool
to do the double and Man U to win the "Littlewoods" Cup) and the note "4A
Latin homework: write up trip for May 3". This roughly places me at being
twelve or so years of age at the time, probably less. It is depressing to
note how little my handwriting has improved since then.
        Forgive me a little indulgence in reprinting verbatim a card game
of my own invention from perhaps ten years ago. It's got some interesting
features for a design by one so young, even though I do say so myself.
>         "Each player gets 13 cards and plays two down. The highest pair,
> if one is played, wins the trick, otherwise the highest rank player wins
> (aces high). If two draw, the one who has the higher second-card wins.
> If two sets of identical ranks are played, the suits decide, on this
> scale: (best) 1 HH, 2 DD, 3 SS, 4 HD, 5 CS, 6 CC, 7 HS, 8 DS, 9 HC, 10 CD.
> The winner of the trick takes all the sets of two and places them in front
> of him in one pile. 5 more tricks are played like so, with the trick winner
> adding to his pile each time. All players place their 13th card face up,
> and any two which match incur a five-card fine; paid to anyone who is not
> in this pair; (the 13th card is paid as part of the fine, with 4 others)."
        After this comes an illustration of how a hand of this game (called
"Two Card Trick" - a name good enough for an article title) might run. The
four players, A, B, C and D take 8, 0, 16 and 24 cards respectively after the
six tricks, but B and D both have Jacks left and so pay the fine. Alas, B has
only that thirteenth card to pay, so the final scores are 12-0-20-20; the
technique of showing what happens in that exceptional circumstance by means
of an illustration is an unusual one.
        Another young Dickson original borrows from the concepts of stud and
"spit in the ocean" poker; players have their own face-up and face-down cards
as well as communal face-up cards forming part of all players' hands, and
predict what they think the highest poker hand is that can be made using all
the cards in the game when they are revealed. Ten variants as to how many
cards are face up, face down and communal then follow, a couple of which have
some reasonably curious twists, and an earnest attempt to calculate the
probabilities of what the best hand available might be for any given number
of cards is used for the basis of a patience-style solo game along the same
lines. After that, a Yahtzee tribute using cards to form poker hands.
        I wonder if, at the time, I would have been pleased to know that ten
years later I'd still be interested in my creations and proud enough of them
to publish them in a magazine lacking neither circulation nor reputation? If
memory serves, even then I was interested in the process of reading and
writing fanzines (a prospective contents page for the first issue of "Super
Cool" is still knocking around), and as a family we've always been on the
keen side on card and board games. An odd disadvantage of being an only child
is that our family of three was always one too small for bridge - which is,
after all, how my parents got in contact. Also it sticks in my mind that I
was a very poor loser in games played within the family circle (yer Monopoly
and yer Game Of Life being two popular culprits); I can remember being very
disappointed that I could not break my Monopoly record, set one Christmas at
the age of six, at an attempt five years later to the day, and an attempt to
play Hotel against a friend more recently still proved abortive on my part
when said friend dared to build luxury facilities on the tallest skyscraper.
        I can laugh about it now, though. Oh yes. Incidentally, it can't have
been all that long after I invented "Two Card Trick" that I first ventured
into the world of PBM, the pro game "It's A Crime" being my highly suitable
starting point. Now suppose my family was not one of three, but one of seven.
Who knows, this might not have been issue eight that you're reading but
issue seventy-eight or more! Innovative card games invented at the age of
eleven, hangman and "guess the name of the panda" ten years down the line. Is
this really progress? It doesn't bode too well for what I'll consider state
of the art in ten more years time, does it?