Hi. I have recently become a great fan of jass card games. In my opinion they are best 2 hand card games and perhaps best 3 hand card game (maybe after skat). When I found a variant of Klabberjass described as a game devised by Culbertson with "bridge scoring" I thought it's some rubbish, but I've read about it and must admit: this is probably the best variant of 2 and 3 hand Klabberjass. It has better bidding, more contracts, nice bridge-like scoring making possible sacrifices... I even wrote a short article about it at Wikipedia, because oddly enough there was none: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo-Jotte

Have you ever played it? How did you like it? How did you find it?

Only one thing baffles me: Culbertson changed a long tradition in jass and, broadly speaking, in point-trick taking games that the forehand (player next to the dealer) leads to the first trick. This, in my opinion, slightly spoils the game for several reason:

1. The fact that the forehand leads first creates an interesting tactical facet.
2. In Klabberjass it is frequent that you play with just 3 trumps (Jxx or 9xx). In such situation the question who leads first is important.
3. This makes no trump bid highly unlikely. In Jo-jott you're expected to bid no trump knowing only 6 cards. With 6 cards it is very difficult to have stoppers in all suits. You can't even bid no trump with something like

A
A
10K
10K

Knowing that you leads first you could bid no trump holding something like

A10KQx
A

When your opponent leads first, you cannot bid no trump with such a hand.

I haven't played Jo-jotte yet, but I would change this rule and restore the original principle that the forehand leads first. I think this would make no trumps contract much more fequent, and bidding - more competative. What do you think?

#NotFunnyCardGamesMemes

#NotFunnyCardGamesMemes

Have you ever played in games from the Bruus/Brusbart family? Did you like it?

Looking for information about an old Polish card game called Drużbart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dru%C5%BCbart) I learnt this game belonges to an old Bruus/Brusbart family. Man... those are perhaps most unhinged card games I have ever seen. Even drużbart is, and the other seems even more crazy. In a nutshell:

you don't have to follow suit. There is no trump suit. Instead, suits and cards have strict hierarchy. Order of cards seems almost completly random. The top 3 cards (on the pic) are some random cards. Sevens have special mechanic and are very powerful.

Interestingly from what pagat writes in some countries (like Greenland) those are national cards games...

Have you ever devised your own traditional card game for family or friends or just for yourself? :) With what effect? I.e. did you manage to convince them to try it? :) Did they like it?

If you ever devised a game, you can share a summary of its rules, but, please, don't go too deep into details here ;)

Pic for attention.

Can you explain me why are Germans so fond of games with tiny decks and extremely complex rules? :(

Hi. Have you heard about mariash (pol. mariasz)? It was the most popular card game in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. Adam Mickiewicz, who was Lithuanian, described the game in his Pan Tadeusz taking place in Lithuania (my translation):

Laughter broke out in both chambers. The Judge with the Bernardine
Playing in mariash and just with spades as trumps
Was about to make an important play; the priest was already hardly breathing,
When the Judge heard the begining of a story
He became so absorbed in it that, with head lifted
And card raised, ready to take the trick
Sit in silence, leaving the Bernardine in fright
And when the story was over, he finally laid down the pamfil.

This means that the game was very popular both in Poland and in Lithuania.

Here are the rules

Deal

The game was originally played with the deck of 36 cards (from aces to 6). The game was played with so called Polish deck i.e. German pattern of cards. In its basic form it was played by 2 players.

6 cards were dealt to each player. The 13th card was divulged and designated the trump suit for the rest of the hand. The divulged card was put orthogonally under the deck so that only half of it was visable.

Order and value of cards

Order of cards in non trump suits was as follows (from the highest):

* tuz (ace), 10, king, wyżnik (queen in the "standard" deck), niżnik (jack in the "standard" deck), 9, 8, 7, 6.

Order of cards in trumps was as follows (from the highest):

* pamfil (wyżnik of the trumps), tuz, 10, niżnik, 9, 8, 7, 6.

The aim of the game was to score points for cards and declarations. Value of cards was as follows:

* pamfil = 11 pts.,
* tuz = 11 pts.,
* 10 = 10 pts.,
* king = 4 pts.,
* non trump wyżniks = 3 pts.,
* niżniks = 2 pts.,
* 9, 8, 7, 6 = 0 pts,
* last trick is additionally worth 10 pts so there is 138 pts. in cards.

Declarations

A pair king and wyżnik (i.e. king and queen) of the same suit, so called mariash, is worth 20 pts. Mariash in the trump suit is worth 40 pts. Mariashes are declared when playing a card from the pair. Second card from the mariash must be shown.

Play

The opponent of the dealer leads first. He plays any card, afterwards his opponent plays a card. 2 cards form a trick. The trick is taken by player who played the highest trump if there were trumps in the trick. Otherwise the trick is won by the player who played the highest card in the suit of the first card in the trick. The player who took the trick draws a card from top of the deck so that he has again 6 cards. Afterwards the second player draws a card. The winer of the trick leads to the next one and so on, so on.

Till the deck is not depleted there is no need to follow suit or play a trump when unable to follow suit. When the deck is depleted you must follow suit and play a trump otherwise. The authers don't say whether players had to overtrump so I propose to follow such rule: in the second phase, when a trump is played, you must overtrump (play a higher trump). When a non trump suit is played you need to follow it, but you don't have to play a higher cards.

EDIT: owner of the 6 of trump can exchange it for the revealed card ("buy" the card).

Scoring

The game is won by whoever scores 131 pts. (with or without mariashes). If you do it in 1 hand you score 2 big point. If you do it in 2 hands, you score 1 big pts.

In the second round players count their points and if some of them reached 131 pts. and took at least 1 trick can end ("arrest") the game. If he was right - wins. Otherwise he loses automatically.

You can learn more details from my article here: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariasz

Cards

The game is best played with the Polish cards. Unfortunately the contemporary Polish deck has only 32 cards. It can be played also with the "normal" cards.

EDIT: Here you can see photos of original "Polish cards" from the times of the Commonwealth used to play mariasz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_playing_cards

Variants:

1. Polished mariash (pol. Mariasz szlifowany) - played with the deck of 24 cards - without 9s, 8s and 7s. 6s are lowest. Polished mariash was more popular in the Commonwealth than the original game.
2. 36 and 24 are divsable by 3 so the game can be normally played by 3 players.
3. Mariash for 4 players - so called kiks. Players play in pairs. Partners sit opposite to each other. All cards are dealt. There is only 1 phase. Players must from the start follow suit and, when unable, trump.

Afterword

How do you like it? Reading it you can notice similarities with some contemporary games.

Please, try to play it. I think that every inhabitant of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth should play mariash at least once in his life :) At least those interested in the history and culture od the Commonwealth. Play it and feel as a nobleman from 18th or 19th century ;)

Pic shows wyżniks from the Polish deck.

Witam. Poszukuję książki, na którą natrafiłem parę lat temu i której opis z tego co zapamiętałem był mniej więcej taki:

"Milicjant prowadzi śledztwo w sprawie morderstwa hazardzisty. Ofiara była graczem w derdę. Milicjant postanawia się nauczyć zasad tej gry. Książka zawiera zasady derdy."

coś takiego. To była, z tego co pamiętam, już współczesna książka. Przypuszczam, że akcja się działa w Trójmieście (Sopocie?), ale może się mylę. Istnieje szansa, że źle to zapamiętałem i książka była o innej grze, ale na 80-90% dotyczyła derdy.

Usiłuję znaleźć tę książkę, ale google, gpt i Gemini są bezradne :( Myślałem, że ta książka to była Derda Ryszarda Zienkiewicza, ale patrząc po opisie i katalogu bibliotecznym książka Zienkiewicza to jest literatura faktu.

Piszę artykuł o derdzie i ta książka byłaby mi bardzo przydatna. Podejrzewam, że trzeba być świetnie oczytantym w polskiej literaturze kryminalnej, żeby to skojarzyć, ale może komuś z Was się uda. To, że nie mogę znaleźć tej książki doprowadza mnie do szału. :(

Proszę, pomóżcie.

Obrazek dla atencji.

Memora, collegas, quandocunque vos dice: "troppo eurocentric", o "eurocentrismo" vos pote cader a un foramine nigre que ingurgita toto.

Salute amicos. Io cercava informationes re le famose regula de Wahl a trovava un multo interessante articulo re le historia de occidental per Creux e Ric Berger. In le articulo illes scribe re un projecto anterior de de Wahl - un lingua appellate auli. Isto esseva un version juvene e immatur de occidental.

Alcun cosas me surprendeva multo. Un de illos es que illo esseva multo plus simile a duo interlinguas - le de IALA e le de Peano. Illo habeva plus simile vocabulario e grammatica. Il transpira que auli habeva grammatica totalmente synthetic, similemente a interlingua e dissimilemente a occidental.

Io anque apprendeva que le version publicate de occidental habeva grammatica totalmente analytic, includente preterito composite:

yo fe far = io faceva.

Isto esseva abandonate in versiones posterior de occidental.

Io ha scribite un articulo re auli in interlingua. Vos pote trovar lo hic: https://ia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auli

Hi. Some time ago I posed a question when actually was the de Wahl's rule published, because it was published neither in the first issue of Kosmoglott, nor in the following issues. Paradoxically a counter-proposal, Creux rule was published in Kosmoglott first.

I googled and I found an excellent article of Creux and Ric Berger about history of Occidental and the rule. You can find it here: https://github.com/occidental-lang/occidental-lang.github.io/blob/master/resources/Origines_de_Occidental.pdf

I discovered that the rule was first published in 1911 (some 11 years before the publication of the language) in some rather obscure magazine, despite de Wahl had had some ideas before. I described the history of the rule here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Wahl's_rule

One of things that surprised me is that the rule initially apparently didn't have exceptions at all.

Contemporary formulation has 10 exceptions. English Wiki quotes 6. Stief rule has even more.

I have always thought that de Wahl's rule is a fascinating, yet a very crude tool. Now I see I was partially wrong. I realised that because of very clever formulation, namely the point 3 in the rule:

>In all other cases, with six exceptions, the removal of the ending gives the exact root: duct/er, duct-, duct/ion; emiss/er, emiss-, emiss/ion

exceptions (almost) weren't needed at all. The point 3 is very broad and covers a lot of verbs. Thanks to it most problematic verbs can be artificially regularised, for instance:

imerger -> imersion => imerser

sentir -> senso => senser

proteger -> protection => protecter.

Because of this quality of classic de Whal's rule, it's perhaps the only formulation where exceptions almost aren't needed at all. All other formulations need exceptions. Turns out Occidental could function quite well in its first years without introducing exceptions.

The problem is that some regularized verbs would be very odd:

seder -> session => sesser

and due to the point 2 of the rule:

>If the root ends in consonants d or r, they are changed into s: decid/er, deci/s-, deci/s/ion; adher/er, adhe/s, adhe/sion; elid/er, eli/s-, eli/s/ion.

we cannot do it with verbs whose stem is supposed to end with d or r:

creder -> credibile => ??

And there are yet other problems which I desribed here like that we cannot get agente next to actor from acter/ager.

But I know see that de Wahl's rule was more clever than I thought.

When and where was the de Wahl's rule published for the first time?

I'm reading through Kosmoglott early issues and I see that the de Wahl's rule wasn't published in the first issue. Neither in the following ones. Paradoxically in the Kosmoglott apparently the Creaux's rule was published before the de Wahl's rule.

It's strange, because how did they know how to use the language? Also, the rule was revolutionary at that time and the publication would certainly give Occidental a lot of followers.

Como nos omne sape (o non) le Russos ha ancora grande problemas con manco de combustibile a causa de attaccos de Ukrainianos sur lor raffinerias. Io hodie videva un bon joco que me faceva rider :)

Ecce illo.

Un Russo arrivava a un station de gasolina repler le tank. Le cassero dice: "200 rublos".

"Que? Heri il esseva 100 rublos", diceva le Russo.

"100 pro gasolina e 100 pro construer nostre Grande Imperio", respondeva le cassero. Le Russo con feritate passava 200 rublos. Le cassero le dava 100 rublos e diceva "si il vos place, illo es vostre cambio. Nos non ha gasolina".

In my game I wanted to save the stones marked by triangles so I fought a ko fight over the stone marked by a circle. But then I realised I don't save them, because there is a snapback after capturing the stone marked by a circle :(

But then I realised that there is a snapback after the snapback. And because my stones have just enough liberies I save them.

My opponent was surprised too. He likely saw the first snapback, but not the second.

It's the first time I had such a funny situation.