How you play Spades is how you play life • Hacker News Board

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#61

Post by MisterBastahrd » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #38

SavantIdiot wrote: post #32

I've never heard of spades until this article. I've played hearts (and always forget how), but not spades. Is this a UK thing?

It's a US game, actually there are two games. Both follow from Whist and Bridge. There are, in the US, two games that go by the name of Spades but (as the primary differentiating characteristics) have different rules regarding bidding and scoring. In Black communities (the version discussed in the article) it's often played with a standard deck plus jokers (possibly removing other cards to make room for the jokers),…

I am in my mid 40s, and as a kid in Cajun country you usually had a pretty good idea of how often older folks (grandparents and older) socially interacted on a casual basis with the other side of the white / black divide by how well they knew the rules to four card games.

The black communities usually played either Hearts or Spades.

The white communities would instead play either Bourre (boo-ray) or the Louisiana variant of Pedro (pee-droh).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourr%C3%A9

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

In unknown mixed company, most would settle on Hearts at first as it's the easiest to understand, and then usually alternate between Pedro and Spades.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#62

Post by vikingerik » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #30

Zircom wrote: 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?

Not exactly. You might think you have some control over your hand in hold 'em, but it's an illusion.

You get two private cards and five community cards. You can pick any five of the seven to use at the showdown. It feels like you get choice with the five-of-seven, but you don't really. There's always one strictly superior set (or trivial equivalencies), and that will be automatically chosen in any serious context ("cards speak".)

Draw poker does give you some control, by letting you discard some cards to get them replaced. There are also wackier poker variations that let you buy or pick or trade out more cards, but very little of that is seriously played anywhere.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#63

Post by qsort » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #51

spullara wrote: post #25

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.

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.

Plus, you can always play sealed and draft, if you really hate constructed formats!

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#64

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

Fantastic presentation and very cool project. Would have liked a 'what is Spades?' card for people who are not familiar with the game and might miss out on all the good stuff due to disorientation.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#65

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #8

I have to say... what terrible UX ! Scroll right? In a world where literally everyone else scrolls down ? Its completely un-natural if you're not using a tablet or smartphone ! Unless you have one of those fancy mice with the horizontal scroll button, but most people won't and will have to click and drag (rinse and repeat).

I am on desktop and found it immediately engaging. My monitor is wider than tall and it was nice to have something that exploited that instead of giving me a partial view of a vertical page with vast deserts of empty space on both sides.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#66

Post by chris_st » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

There used to be a fantastic spades app on the Palm Pilot (!) which played pretty well, including fairly sensible partner play. There was a URL where you could get the source, but it was a dead URL, alas.

Anyone know a good spades app for iOS? I have "Spades card classic", which features pretty abysmal play, and "Spades Masters", which is online-with-other-people only.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#67

Post by zdw » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

LynxInLA wrote: post #23

zdw wrote: post #5

I (as a white American) didn't know about this history, and have played Spades as a family game for as long as I can remember. Some interesting variations - we usually played with no Jokers, no bag, but with a negative score rule when not meeting bid. Also, a card selection mechanic if 2 players are playing - the players would alternating picking cards from from the deck, decide whether they wanted it, then keep it a…

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.

I don't know the lineage past my parents, but my grandparents did play a lot of cards (I learned Canasta from my grandmother), and my grandfather was in the Navy in WWII, so it's definitely possible.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#68

Post by sixstringtheory » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

nobody9999 wrote: post #55

sixstringtheory wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never heard of that variant myself. Played constantly in high school, mostly during calculus and comp sci; wrote a game engine for it in C++ in that class. Like poker, it's less about the cards and more about the social aspects. Actual card strategy is just table stakes. Can you bluff the other team into bidding too low or high? Can you read how your teammate bids and close the round accordingly? I've won plenty of g…

>The only variant we'd play was a three player game where we'd have to remove a few cards to make the deck size a multiple of 3. We always just removed the 2 of clubs. 51/3=17 cards each.

Yes, thanks :) It's been a while and I didn't do the math...

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#69

Post by dharmab » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #51

spullara wrote: post #25

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.

Another genre is "deckbuilding" where all the cards are in a shared pool and you construct a deck during the gameplay by various means.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#70

Post by actually_a_dog » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 11:29 PM UTC

I spent a good amount of time in the Midwest in an environment where about half the people were black, half white, and there was a good amount of card playing going on. The black people pretty universally wanted to either play Spades or Bid Whist. The white people played Euchre. There was little or no crossover among the groups. I only recall one white person who knew how to play Bid Whist, and one black person who knew how to play Euchre.