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How you play Spades is how you play life

pudding.cool

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Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#81
post #30
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In spades all 52 cards are dealt out 13 to each player, so there's absolutely no way* to change anything in your hand. There's no deck or discard pile to draw from, unlike other card games were you can draw or otherwise pick cards up others have discarded/played, or some games even allow you to play cards off other cards already on the table. *in some variants you can trade 2 cards with your partner if you are taking…

Isn’t Texas hold em poker, I would guess the most popular card game, the same way?

In holdem you can fold or raise. If you fold you are obviously not playing your hand.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#82
post #78

I find it funny when people assume that something that is common within their subgroup is unique to their subgroup. I liked that this article called out spades’ role in African American culture. But the game isn’t unique to US African American culture. So it’s interesting how it’s presented as unique or special to a particular culture or subgroup. It would be like if I grew up in Iowa and everyone played spades, and…

Do you feel the same way about when Americans claim baseball is the national pastime or say "As American as apple pie".

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#83

There was a line in there that reminded me a bit of a thing you might write in a school essay - "When playing Spades, you’re dealt a hand and have no control over the cards you get—unless you’re cheating." I'm having trouble thinking of a card game where you do get control over the cards you're dealt. Maybe there is one? I'm reminded of a time in high school where for some reason I had to write an essay connecting Ma…

In Hearts you often get to pass 3 cards to an opponent before play begins.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#84

This might sound really inflammatory, but it's a genuine question that I just haven't ever heard anyone give an answer to. Can someone explain this? > "African-Americans were dealt a hell of a hand when we were forcibly brought to the American colonies as enslaved laborers." When I look at the median (and bottom-quartile) African-American vs. African, the former seem to live vastly better lives in almost every concei…

Firstly, regardless of where a person ends up, if they get there by having several generations of their family kidnapped, enslaved, and systematically mistreated, I think it counts as “a hell of a hand”.

Secondly, it sounds like your thinking isn’t too far away from “well, aren’t they better off now?”, but you’re assuming that the development of African nations and societies progressed completely independently from the colonization and enslavement of their populations by Europeans. If you’re going to construct an alternate timeline where nobody was kidnapped, why does it follow that African nations would have developed in the exact same ways as if they were? Didn’t the United States reap massive economic benefit from the labor of those enslaved people, benefit which certainly didn’t make it back to Africa? And isn’t a lot of the quality of life that we in the United States currently enjoy built on the back of that economic benefit?

I’m engaging here because I do think you’re being earnest, but you should probably be aware that many people would find your question quite offensive, and I can see why. I think you’ve anticipated this, but I hope you don’t dismiss that offense as being “overly sensitive”, and instead ask yourself what you might be missing that would cause you to overlook the causes of such a strong emotional reaction.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#85
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In games like Magic: The Gathering you do get to decide what possible cards you can be dealt.

And richer players have access better to cards that poorer payers can never hope to be dealt.

My friends and i use cockatrice these days even when we meet in person for that reason. No more issue where guy with largest budget wins every time.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#86
Geezus, now card games are being ruined by racial narrative, too.

I and many other people grew up playing Spades, and this is the first whiff of any such historical rewriting that I've encountered (though I shouldn't be surprised). I have no doubt that blacks as a group developed an affinity for the game -- but this piece tries to claim what is otherwise a unifying game is really all about black history. This is right up there with last year's "Police were invented to hunt escaped slaves".

Wikipedia is no ultimate source, but even there the history relates it to other, similar games, and reinforces that it was made very popular by GIs during WWII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spades_(card_game)

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#88
post #76
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do have a point, but this trope is overstated in a way that doesn't reflect reality IMO. At a competitive level the playing field is completely level. You have to assume players have access to all the cards, otherwise games like it make zero sense. Sure, it's an expensive game, but so are many other games and sports. It's an accessibility issue, not a balance issue: it's not like you can buy your way to victory.…

> It's an accessibility issue, not a balance issue: it's not like you can buy your way to victory. It's only 'not a balance issue' because you consider access to all of the cards to be table stakes.

Right, but... it is table stakes. No-one is playing Magic seriously at high level without being in a position to buy any deck they want. (Indeed AIUI at this point top players devote a similar amount of time to a full-time job, and have teams of supporters to practice with).

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (also white American) play the same rules and was taught them by my grandfather. He said he learned the game in the Navy during WWII, but I'm not sure if that timeline lines up.

Can confirm that I played a lot of spades during the boring parts of my ~5 year Navy enlistment.

We always had at least one spades tournament on the mess decks for any underway more than 2 weeks.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#90
post #63
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And richer players have access better to cards that poorer payers can never hope to be dealt.

You do have a point, but this trope is overstated in a way that doesn't reflect reality IMO. At a competitive level the playing field is completely level. You have to assume players have access to all the cards, otherwise games like it make zero sense. Sure, it's an expensive game, but so are many other games and sports. It's an accessibility issue, not a balance issue: it's not like you can buy your way to victory.…

You've demonstrated that only the rich can compete; not really refuting the point, is it? But limiting our attention to strictly pro-level play is a bit silly, as it ignores the overwhelming majority of players. When I was in high school, two of my friends had a lot more money than the rest of us. We'd get a few boosters of a new expansion, they'd get a case. Consequently, their decks were nigh unbeatable.
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