Players are not supposed to handle the dice with more than one hand, pass them directly from hand to hand, nor take the dice past the edge of the table. The only way to change hands when throwing dice, if permitted at all, is to set the dice on the table, let go, then take them with the other hand.
When throwing the dice, the player is expected to hit the farthest wall at the opposite end of the table. The dice may not be slid across the table and must be tossed. They may not be thrown higher than the eye level of the dealers.
The dice must not land in the boxman’s bank or on any of the dealers’ working stacks of money.
When either of the dice land on chips or markers not in the boxman’s bank or the dealers’ working stacks, the number that would be on top if the object the die is leaning on were removed, is the number that is used to make the call.
If a die hits a player or dealer and rolls back onto the table, the roll counts as long as the person being hit did not interfere with the die.
In most cases the shooter may “set” the dice to a particular configuration, but if they do, they must be quick about it so as not to delay the game. Some casinos have “no setting” rules, and the player must throw the dice as given to him.
Do not try to place money in the dealer’s hand or expect the dealers to hand you chips. Dealers are not allowed to touch the players at any time. Players are expected to place cash on the layout and announce “change only” or a specific bet and amount. The dealer will then place chips on the layout or in front of the players.
Many crap table layouts state “NO CALL BETS”. This means a player is not allowed to call out a bet without having at least the bet amount of chips on the table. If the chips exceed the bet, for example a $100 chip is placed and bets called out of “$25 on five and nine”, the dealer will say “it’s a bet” and return $50 change to the player. The dealer doesn’t have to actually place the bet in the proper place on the table to constitute a valid bet. This method is consistent with the fast action of the game, allowing a player to make a last-second bet while the dice are about to be thrown. The NO CALL BET rule may exist to prevent confusion on the amount bet, possibly going back to the days of 25 cent tables. For example “three fifty” could mean $3.50 or $350. If the dealer is not clear about the intention of the player he may state “no bet” and push the chips back to the player.
The origins of this game are unknown but it can be found at the kitchen tables across the Canadian Prairies
Equipment
Chips
3+ Decks
2+ Players
Players
There are players and the dealer, both of which pivotal to game play. PLAYERS: participate in every game DEALER: the dealer only plays in games specified. They also play house and make up any differences. Position moves to the left each round.
Game Play
Dealer gives five cards to everyone face down.
I. Red Black Each player bets whether the majority of cards is red or black, if all are one type the bet is doubled.
II. Poker Dealers deals house hand face down. Players place bets against the house only.
III. Bingo Dealer calls bingo cards while players put one chip on every card called. The winner(s) get all chips placed on the cards
IV. Put & Take Dealer flips cards (one at a time); first puts in one, second puts in two… and then first takes one, second takes two… the dealer makes up the difference
V. Counting Dealer flips cards from deck counting out loud (ace, two, three…). If a card flipped matches the verbal card, players give the amount on the card (Jack eleven, Queen twelve, King thirteen)
End Of Game
As soon as a player runs out of chips the player is out of the game. If the game is called short the player with the most chip wins.
Fraudulent behavior on the part of online casinos has been documented. The most commonly reported behaviors are refusal to pay withdrawals or cheating software. Online casinos who have multiple confirmed cases of fraudulent behavior are often called “rogues” or rogue casinos by the online casino player community.
One commonly reported behavior related to refusal to pay withdrawals is the refusal to pay withdrawals promptly, in hopes that the player will continue gambling with the money in the account and lose it all back.
Cheating software appears to be less common than payout problems.
Some casino software has been mathematically proven to cheat, such as Casino Bar (evidence by Michael Shackleford and others). Elka System/Oyster Gaming software is known to cheat, also confirmed by Michael Shackleford. Statistically non-random video poker has been reported at Playtech, see article “OCA STATS”. Screen shots from the back office of an older brand of software indicated the odds could be adjusted by the operator.
Much of the speculation about casino software cheating is usually the result of a player finding a pattern in a statistically small set of results. Most people in the online casino industry believe that most of the major casino software brands offer odds and paybacks that are the same as their land-based casino counterparts.
Many casino gambling portals and player forums maintain blacklists of rogue casinos. These can easily found in any major search engine, but most of them constitute indvidual webmaster and player opinions rather than anything official from any type of regulating body.
Fraudulent player behavior
Common fraudulent behavior from online casinos players includes the signing up for multiple casino accounts using different identities in order to claim a bonus offer multiple times. Another form of fraudulent behavior might be the use of a graphics editing software like Adobe Photoshop to create a false winning slot machine game screenshot in an attempt to tell the casino they hit a jackpot and didn’t get paid for it.
Online casinos usually lock the player accounts for these people, and it’s widely believed that online casinos share fraudulent player blacklists.
Fuck the Dealer is a simple drinking game popular in the Midwest. It is best played by three to six players, although it can be played with more. It is similar to the game Hi-Lo, except that all cards are laid out face up on the table once they’ve been played.
The rules
Play starts with one person, the ‘Dealer’, shuffling the cards and placing them face down in front of him.
The person to the dealer’s left becomes the first ‘Player’. The Player tries to guess what the top card on the deck is. The dealer then looks at the top card and tells him whether or not his guess was right. If the player guesses correctly, the dealer takes five drinks. Otherwise, the dealer tells the player whether the top card is ‘Higher’ or ‘Lower’ than his guess. The player then gets one more chance to guess correctly. If he guesses correctly on the second attempt, the dealer takes three drinks. If the player guesses incorrectly, the player drinks the difference between his guess and the card. (i.e. if he guesses a ’5′ and the card was a really ’3′, the player must take 2 drinks.)
In either case, the dealer now places the card face up in front of him. Arrange the cards in an organized fashion, so everyone can see which cards have already been drawn(see image right). When all four of a particular card have been drawn, it is considered to be “closed out”. Cards which have been closed out are flipped over to help everyone see that no more of those cards are available.
Now, play continues and the dealer looks at the next person and asks him to pick a card. This continues until two players in a row guess incorrectly. When that happens, the player to the dealer’s left becomes the new ‘Dealer’.
It is important to note that there are two ‘circles’ going on – the dealer circle, and the player circle. The next ‘Dealer’ is always the person to the current dealer’s left. Likewise, the next ‘player’ is always the person to the left of the last player — The next player does not change just because a new person is made dealer. The next player is NOT automatically the person to the new dealer’s left… unless of course the player to the Dealer’s left is the next person in line. And of course, the player and the dealer cannot be the same person. But if that situation should ever occur, the ‘dealer’ circle takes priority over the ‘player’ circle.
Play continues until the dealer is left with three cards. At that point, the dealer is considered to be ‘Fucked’ and must do a shot. (Since there are only three cards, the player is guaranteed to guess correctly on the second attempt. Therefore, the dealer is figuratively ‘Fucked’! Hence, the title of the game)
Chingona is a dice game played by two or more players, using five poker dice and a cup. It is usually played to decide who is to pay for the next round of drinks, but betting can also be involved.
Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) are computerised machines normally found in betting shops which allow players to bet on the outcome of various games and events with Fixed Odds. They were introduced to UK shops in 2002, shortly after the abolition of the Betting Tax in October 2001.The most commonly played game is Roulette. The minimum bet per spin is £1 and the maximum is £100. Chips can be as small as 20 pence. The maximum amount that can be won on any spin is £500.
Other games include Spoof, Bingo, Virtual Racing and Triple Disc.
Shops are allowed a maximum of four such terminals, although since this number also includes fruit machines, many shops have fewer than four.
There are several free and some subscription-based servers available for playing bridge on the Internet. OKBridge is the oldest of the still-running Internet Bridge services; players of all standards, from beginners to world champions may be found playing there. SWAN Games is a more recent competitor. Bridge Base Online is mostly free, and now has a much larger membership base than either of the above. Some National Contract Bridge Organizations now offer online bridge play to their members including the English Bridge Union, the Dutch Bridge Union and the Australian Bridge Federation. MSN and Yahoo! Games have several online Rubber Bridge rooms.
There are many advantages to playing Bridge online:
The ability to choose when you play.
The ability to choose your opponents. In a club game, you may be forced to play against pairs that are much weaker, rude, or much stronger. Playing online, you can play against opponents of nearly equal ability.
Most servers offer an accurate player rating system. The ACBL and EBU masterpoints systems give credit for how much one has played rather than how well; most online systems have a rating system which attempts to measure one’s ability without regard to the number of games played.
There are fewer restrictions on which conventions one is allowed to use.
You can not make inferences from partner’s tone of voice or other cues available in real life. However, intentional cheating, such as instant messaging your partner, is easier.
A detailed record of every hand may be kept, to help resolve complaints.
It is impossible to make an illegal play by accident, as the software won’t accept a play or call which does not conform to the rules.
The main disadvantage to playing online is that bridge is a social game, and many people play because they enjoy the social atmosphere of the bridge club.
Computer Bridge
After many years of little progress, at the end of the twentieth century computer bridge made big strides forward. In 1996 the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) initiated official World Championships Computer Bridge, to be held annually along with a major bridge event. The first Computer Bridge Championship took place in 1997 at the North American Bridge Championships in Albuquerque.
MindPlay is a technology designed to monitor blackjack players’ actions while playing in a casino.Monitoring a person’s play traditionally is done visually, by the dealer, floorperson, pitboss, and the eye in the sky (video surveillance). If one of these observers notices something unusual in a person’s play, they will do what they can to either
determine if the person is a cheat or a card-counter, or
change the game to turn the odds back in favor of the casino, through more frequent card-shuffling or other methods, or
casino personnel may bar a player they think is a card counter, even though the practice is legal.
(Cheating by various means is illegal, though, and may result in arrest.)
MindPlay utilizes a specially-designed blackjack tabletop that incorporates many features to monitor players’ actions:
Specially encoded playing cards, using invisible ink and barcodes.
14 tiny cameras built into the dealer’s chip tray (which is now slightly elevated to account for the cameras). These cameras can read every card in play by reading the invisible ink printed on them.
Special chips, so that sensors embedded in the table can automatically calculate each player’s bet more accurately than a dealer or pitboss could visually.
As MindPlay monitors every card that has been played along with players’ betting habits, it is also counting cards just as a card counter would do while sitting at the table. If MindPlay notices that bets are changing dramatically at the same time that a card counter would typically make those bets, MindPlay will notify casino officials that they may want to investigate further.
MindPlay tables cost around 20,000 USD.
Because MindPlay tends to thwart their efforts to beat a blackjack game, card counters generally avoid casinos which use the system and its competitiors, and often circulate news of such installations on various Internet sites. Some card counters have tried to make the general public aware of the use of these systems, in an effort to convince others not to patronize the games. Indeed, MindPlay has been somewhat slow to spread among American casinos, partly because of the cost (which may be more than what might be lost to a card-counter) and partly because of negative reaction by players.
MindPlay was first released in 2003. Since then, several newer-generation systems have been developed for chip tracking and card tracking.
For instance, RFID for chip tracking is gaining ground with casinos. The advantage of RFID seems to be that it can be used for games other than blackjack and also for more comprehensive tracking of chips throughout the casino. In other games, such technology would normally be used to track a player’s action for rating purposes, to more accurately determine the comps a player may be given.
Two other companies offer automated card recognition capability. Tangam Gaming’s solution tracks cards as well as player decisions using hidden overhead cameras, while ShuffleMaster only tracks cards, using a special electronic shoe.
At its core, bridge is a game of skill played with randomly dealt cards, which makes each deal a game of chance. Despite this, chance can be largely eliminated by comparing pairs’ results in identical situations. This is achievable when there are eight or more players, sitting at several tables, and the deals from each table are preserved and passed to the next table, thereby duplicating them for another 4 (or more) participants to play. At the end of a competition, the scores for each deal are compared against each other, and most points are awarded to the players doing the best with each particular deal. This measures skill despite the initial chance of the deal.
This form of the game is referred to as duplicate bridge and is played in tournaments, which can gather as many as several hundred players. Duplicate bridge is a mind sport, and its popularity gradually became comparable to that of chess, which it is often compared with for its complexity and mental skills required for high-level competition.
The basic premise of duplicate bridge was occasionally used for whist matches, as early as 1857. For some reason, duplicate was not thought to be suitable for bridge, and so it wasn’t until the 1920s that (auction) bridge tournaments became popular.
In 1925 when contract bridge first evolved, bridge tournaments were becoming popular, but the rules were somewhat in flux, and several different organizing bodies were involved in tournament sponsorship: the American Bridge League (formerly the American Auction Bridge League, which changed its name in 1929), the American Whist League, and the United States Bridge Federation. In 1935, the first officially recognized world championship was held. By 1937, however, the American Contract Bridge League had come to power (a union of the ABL and the USBF), and it remains the principal organizing body for bridge tournaments in North America. In 1958, the World Bridge Federation was founded, as bridge had become an international activity.
Today, the ACBL has over 160,000 members and runs 1100 tournaments per year with 3200 officially-associated bridge clubs.
Bidding boxes and bidding screens
In tournaments, “bidding boxes” are frequently used. A bidding box is a box of cards, each bearing the name of one of the legal calls in bridge. A player wishing to make a call displays the appropriate card from the box, rather than making a verbal declaration. This prevents unauthorized information from being conveyed via voice inflection. In top national and international events, “bidding screens” are used. These are diagonal screens which are placed across the table, preventing a player from seeing his partner during the game.
Important Bridge Players
Giorgio Belladonna
Easley Blackwood Sr.
Norberto Bocchi
Ely Culbertson
Giorgio Duboin
Benito Garozzo
Charles Goren
Bob Hamman
Oswald Jacoby
Jeff Meckstroth
Terence Reese
Eric Rodwell
Omar Sharif
Helen Sobel Smith
Samuel Stayman
Trick-taking games can be traced back to the early 16th century. Whist became the dominant form, and enjoyed a loyal following for centuries.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word bridge is the English pronunciation of “biritch”, an older name of the game of uncertain origin; the oldest known rule book, from 1886, calls it “Biritch, or Russian Whist”. This game, known today by the retronyms bridge-whist and straight bridge, became popular in the United States and the UK in the 1890s.
Biritch featured several significant developments from Whist: the trump suit was either chosen by the dealer, or he could pass the choice to his partner; there was a call of no trumps; and the dealer’s partner laid his cards on the table as dummy to be played by the dealer. It also featured other characteristics found in modern bridge: points scored above and below the line; game was 3NT, 4H and 5D (although 8 club tricks and 15 spade tricks were needed!); the score could be doubled and redoubled; there were slam bonuses.
In 1904 auction bridge arose where the players bid in a competitive auction to decide the contract and declarer. The object became to make at least as many tricks as were contracted for and penalties were introduced for failing to do so.
The modern game of contract bridge was the result of innovations to the scoring of auction bridge made by Harold Stirling Vanderbilt and others. The most significant change was that only tricks contracted for were counted below the line towards game and for slam bonuses, which resulted in bidding becoming much more challenging and interesting. Also new was the concept of vulnerability to make it more expensive to sacrifice to protect the lead in a rubber, and the various scores were adjusted to produce a more balanced game. Vanderbilt set out his rules in 1925, and within a few years contract bridge had so supplanted other forms of the game that “bridge” became synonymous with “contract bridge.”
These days most bridge played is tournament bridge.
After selecting their buttons, players assemble their dice. Most buttons have five dice, but some have more or fewer, and in certain cases the number of dice may change over the course of the game. The size—that is, number of sides—of most dice is specified and unchangeable, but most buttons have at least one Swing or Option die, which means that the player has a choice of sizes to use for that die. Swing dice, represented by letters like variables in algebra, may have any size within a certain range of integers: for example, an X Swing die may have any whole number of sides between 4 and 20, including odd numbers. Option dice, represented by two numbers separated by a line or slash, give the player a choice of only two sizes: for example, an Option 8/12 die may have either 8 or 12 sides, but no other number. Die sizes typically range between 1 and 30, and any fair random number generator may stand in for a “die” of a non-standard size. For example, a two-sided die is easily simulated by a tossed coin, and a coin plus an eight-sided die can serve as a sixteen-sider: if the coin lands heads, add 0 to the value on the eight-sider; if tails, add 8.
Conceptually, small dice represent speed, and large dice represent strength.
Players select the size of their Swing and Option dice in secret, and reveal them after selection is complete. Then all dice are rolled and arranged in size order in front of their owners. The player with the die showing the lowest value takes the first turn. In the case of a tie for the lowest value, the next lowest value is considered. If all dice are tied, the round ends in a draw, and is replayed. The right to take the first turn is called initiative. Some dice have special skills that change their effect on initiative.
Starting with the player who gained initiative, players take turns using their own dice to attack and capture their opponent’s dice. Most dice can participate in either of the two basic types of attack:
Power: In a power attack, one attacking die captures an opposing die that is showing a value lower than or equal to its own.
Skill: In a skill attack, one or more attacking dice capture an opposing die that is showing a value equal to the sum of their values.
After an attack is made, the captured die is added to the capturing player’s score pile. All dice that participated in the attack are rerolled. The player’s turn ends, and his opponent’s begins.
A player may not pass his turn unless he is unable to make a legal attack. When both players pass consecutively (which usually, but not always, happens because one player is out of dice), the round ends and scores are counted.
Each player scores the size, in points, of each captured die in his score pile, plus half the size of each of his dice that remained uncaptured (some die skills can alter this total). The player with the higher total wins the round. Usually it is the case that the player who captured more dice wins the round. However, when there is a large difference between the number of die sides each player owns, it may be possible for one player to lose all of his dice and still win the round.
Between rounds, players may, if they wish, change the size of their Swing and Option dice to any other size in the allowed range. In tournament play, only the losing player may do so.
The first player to win three rounds wins the game.
Die skills
Dice in Button Men can be assigned one or more of over 30 official and unofficial die skills, which may augment, reduce, or simply alter their abilities. Usually, die skills are assigned only to some of the dice on a button, so that the player can only use those skills while those dice remain in play. In a small number of cases, however, special skills (other than die skills) are assigned to a button rather than to its dice, so that its player can always use them.
Some common die skills and their meanings are:
Focus: At the beginning of each round, the player who does not win initiative may, at his option, reduce the values showing on one or more of his Focus dice, if and only if he gains the initiative by so doing. His opponent may then respond by doing the same with her own Focus dice. The players continue “focusing” in this manner until one of them is unable to or chooses not to. Any Focus dice that were “turned down” as part of a successful bid for initiative are considered “dizzy” and may not participate in an attack during their owner’s first turn.
Shadow: Shadow dice may not make power attacks. Instead, they make shadow attacks, in which they capture any die showing a value between their current value and their maximum value, inclusive. For example, a ten-sided Shadow die showing a value of 8 could capture any die showing an 8, 9, or 10. Shadow dice can participate in skill attacks as normal.
Poison: Poison dice attack normally but are scored differently. At the end of the round, instead of adding the number of sides of a Poison die to their scores, players subtract half the number of sides on any Poison die they captured, and the full number of sides on any Poison die of their own that remained uncaptured.
Stinger: When making a skill attack, Stinger dice may be counted as if they were showing any number between 1 and the value they are actually showing. Thus, a normal six-sided die showing 3 and an eight-sided Stinger die showing 6 could combine to capture any die showing a number between 4 and 9, inclusive. As a trade-off, Stinger dice are not considered when determining initiative.
Dice can have more than one skill assigned to them, but some skills contradict one another. For example, a Focus Stinger die could never be used for its Focus skill, since its owner could never gain initiative by reducing the value showing on a die that does not count towards initiative.
Two partnerships of two players each are needed to play bridge. The four players sit around a table with partners opposite one another. The compass directions are often used to refer to the four players, aligned with their seating pattern. Thus, South and North form one partnership and East and West form the other.
A session of bridge consists of many deals (also called hands or boards); the game play of each deal consists of four phases: the deal, the bidding (or auction), the play of the cards, and scoring.
The goal is to achieve as high a numerical score as possible with the dealt cards. The score is affected by two principal factors: the number of tricks bid in the auction, and the number of tricks taken during play. Broadly said, there is incentive to the players to accurately bid the number of tricks that their hands are capable of delivering, as the bonuses for bid tricks increase with the bid level (number of tricks). Thus, in the bidding stage, the pairs compete to see who proposes the highest number of tricks, and the side who wins the bidding must then fulfill that bargain by taking at least the contracted quantity of tricks in play to obtain a score. The number of tricks bid and the trump suit (or lack thereof) are referred to as a contract. The trump suit, or its absence (no trumps) is referred to as denomination or strain. If the side who wins the auction then takes the contracted number of tricks (or more), it is said to have fulfilled the contract and is awarded a score; otherwise, the contract is said to be defeated and points are awarded to the defenders.
Dealing
The game is played with a complete deck of 52 cards. One of the players is the dealer. In rubber bridge (or other “friendly” games), the cards are shuffled and the dealer distributes all the cards clockwise one at a time, starting with his left-hand opponent and ending with himself, so each player receives a hand of thirteen cards. At the same time, for convenience, the dealer’s partner usually shuffles a second deck, to be ready for use on the following deal. The deal rotates clockwise, so the dealer’s left-hand opponent will deal next.
In duplicate bridge, the hands are shuffled only once, at the beginning of the tournament, and dealt clockwise one at a time (there are also special machines for pre-dealing on large tournaments), and placed into bridge boards. At each subsequent table, each player pulls his cards from the board and counts them to ensure that the deal has not been corrupted. Unlike in other trick-taking games, the players do not throw their cards to the middle of the table in each trick; instead, each player keeps his played cards before him, to allow the completed deal to be returned to the board unaltered.
Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge
Rules of contract bridge are standardized by World Bridge Federation and published in the book “Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge”. The last edition is issued in 1997 and consists of 93 laws (articles). All duplicate bridge sponsoring organizations on lower levels must apply those rules. A large portion of the laws, though, is devoted to dealing with various irregular situations, and as such it is mostly used by tournament directors (referees) as the reference book. They are, of course, not binding for rubber and other “friendly game” players, and, instead, simpler rules for dealing with irregularities are often applied by the players themselves.
A dead pool, or deathpool is a game of prediction which involves guessing when someone will die. Sometimes it is a bet where money is involved. The combination of dead or death and betting-pool, refers to such a gambling arrangement. A typical modern dead pool might have players pick out celebrities who they think will die within the year. There are several scoring variants. For example, a player might be rewarded few, if any, points for predicting the death of someone who is over 80 years old or is suffering from a terminal disease. Other pools require participants to form a list ranked on how sure they are that a person on the list will die, with points given based on how high a person on their list is ranked, and others award points based on how many other contestants selected the deceased celebrity. Another variant on the game has a single point awarded for each correct prediction, regardless of the celebrity’s age or medical condition. The advantage of this scoring method is that there is more scoring, and it rewards research (learning which celebrities are experiencing failing health) rather than luck.One example of the concept is a series of segments on the Howard Stern Radio Show, where show regulars would place bets into a celebrity death pool, each trying to predict the next celebrity to pass on. The practice has been expanded to include wagering on such abstract entities as businesses.
Definitions of celebrity vary from contest to contest. Smaller pools may rely on consensus of the players as to who is famous. Others require an obituary to appear in a recognized newswire such as the Associated Press or Reuters. The Lee Atwater Invitational employed a Fame Committee consisting of non-contestants who assess ahead of time the name-recognition of each celebrity. The Rotten.com Dead Pool, the largest in the world, uses NNDB as its source of qualified celebrities, and as arbiter of their life status.
The concept and success strategies are also detailed in an annual guide called “The Dead Pool”, written by KQRS radio personality Mike Gelfand and author Mike Wilkinson. KQRS also does an annual on air dead pool contest, similar to Stern’s, where show hosts and listners will attempt to pick which celebrity will die in that calendar year.
In most pools, killing the celebrity in question is considered cheating and results in the killer’s immediate disqualification from the pool. Such a dead pool was depicted in the aptly-titled Clint Eastwood movie, The Dead Pool.
Death List is unlike a traditional dead pool as there are no competitors involved and no points are awarded. The names on the list are chosen by a committee, members of Death List then track the well-being of the chosen celebrities over the course of the year. The Death List was first conceived in a student bar on November 29th 1986, the inspiration being the death of Cary Grant earlier the same day. The list’s aim is to predict which people in the public eye will die in the following year. Ever since 1987, a list has been drawn up, but starting in 1994 the Death List has consisted of 50 prominent people chosen annually by the committee, who might merit a prominent obituary in the UK media — ranging from politicans, religious figures and show business stars.
The Dead Pool is also an arena in the Mortal Kombat series only being featured in Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat: Deception. The stage itself is a pit surrounded with acid. On Mortal Kombat II, you had to wait for the “Finish Him/Her”" screen, then you could knock your opponent in the acid, and it would count as a Fatality. On Mortal Kombat Deception, you could just knock your opponent in the acid with a single powerful strike.
HTML clipboardBlind Hookey is a card game played with a full pack of cards, sometimes used for the purpose of gambling.The players, of whom there may be any number, cut for deal, the lowest having the preference. The pack is then shuffled by the player on the dealer’s right hand, and afterwards, if he so please, by the dealer himself, after which it is cut by the right-hand player. The two halves are then re-united, and the pack is passed to the player on the left of the dealer, who cuts from the top a small quantity of cards (not less than four, nor more than his due proportion of the pack). The pack is then passed to the next player, who cuts a similar portion, and so on round the circle, the cards left belonging to the dealer. No one looks at his cards, but makes his stake on pure speculation; hence the name “blind” hookey. The dealer then turns up his cards, and shows the bottom one; the other players do the same. Each player holding a higher card than that of the dealer receives the amount of his stake; all below or equal pay the dealer. This is repeated until a hand occurs in which the dealer is a loser all round, when the deal is at an end, and the next player deals.
Alternative method
The cards are shuffled and cut, before the dealer cuts them into three portions. Two of these are for the company, the third for himself. The other players place their stakes on whichever two packets they please, the rejected packet being taken by the dealer.
The stakes having been made, the cards are turned up, and the players receive or pay as the bottom cards of their packets prove to be higher or lower than that of the dealer.
Double Exposure Blackjack is a variant of blackjack in which both the dealer’s cards are revealed to players at the start of the hand. Knowing the dealer’s hand provides significant information, and without rules modifications would be advantageous to the player.The main rules changes to provide the casino with the advantage are even money payouts on blackjack (compared to 3:2 at normal tables) and ties losing (compared to pushing in standard blackjack).
Other rules changes also exist to the detriment of players. Certain tables restrict doubling down and splitting, and do not allow doubles after splits.
The game was invented by Bob Stupak, former owner of Vegas World and Stratosphere casinos.
Players: 4
Age range: recommended for 12 and up
Setup time < 2 minutes
Playing time: WBF tournament games = 7.5 minutes per deal
Rules complexity; Medium
Strategy depth: High
Random chance: Low – high depending on variant played
Skills required: Memory, Tactics
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game of skill, and partly of chance, for four players, who form two partnerships (sides). The partners sit opposite each other. The game consists of two main parts – bidding (or auction) and play, after which the hand is scored.
The bidding ends with a contract, which is a declaration by one partnership that their side shall take a stated quantity (or more) of tricks, with specified suit as trump or without trumps. The rules of play are rather simple and similar to other trick-taking games.
Skill With Prizes (SWP) machines are a subset of slot machines, in which the payout a player receives is dependent on a game of skill rather than just luck.One common type of SWP game is the Quiz machine – where a player has to answer a number of trivia questions to win money.
There are other types, where a video game of some sort is played. Titles in this category include The Crystal Maze and Word Up.
The game of Basset (in French Bassette, from Italian Bassetta) was considered one of the most polite games with cards, and only fit for persons of the highest rank to play at, on account of the great losses or gains that might accrue on one side or the other.The sums of money lost in France at this game were so considerable that the princes of the blood were in danger of being undone; and after many persons of distinction were ruined the court of France thought fit to forbid Basset. Then faro was invented; and both were soon introduced into England, and after three or four years’ play here, they impoverished so many families, that Parliament enacted a suppression of both games, with severe penalties. The two games are, therefore, of historical interest, and deserve an explanation.
Basset was a sort of lottery. The dealer who kept the bank at Basset, having the sole disposal of the first and last card, and other considerable privileges in dealing the cards, had a much greater prospect of gaining than those who played. This was a truth so acknowledged in France that the king, by public edict, ordered that the privilege of a talliere, or banker at Basset, should only be allowed to the ‘chief cadets,’ or sons of noblemen — supposing that whoever kept the bank must, in a very short time, acquire a considerable fortune.
In this game there was:
The Talliere, the banker, who laid down a sum of money to answer every winning card which might turn up.
The Croupiere, the assistant of the former, standing by to supervise the losing cards, — so that when there were many at play he might not lose by overlooking anything which might turn up to his profit.
The Punter, or every player
The Fasse, that is, the first card turned up by the talliere, by which he gained half the value of the money laid upon every card of that sort by the punters or players.
The Couch, which was the first stake that every punter laid upon each card — every player having a book of 13 cards before him, upon which he must lay his money, more or less, according to his fancy.
The Paroli: in this, whoever won the couch, and intended to go on for another advantage, crooked the corner of his card, letting his money lie, without being paid the value by the talliere.
The Masse, which was, when those who had won the couch, would venture more money on the same card.
The Pay, which was when the player had won the couch, and, being doubtful of making the paroli, left off; for by going the pay, if the card turned up wrong, he lost nothing, having won the couch before; but if by this adventure fortune favoured him, he won double the money he had staked.
The Alpieu was when the couch was won by turning up, or crooking, the corner of the winning card.
The Sept-et-le-va was the first great chance that showed the advantages of the game, namely, if the player had won the couch, and then made a paroli by crooking the corner of his card, and going on to a second chance, if his winning card turned up again it became a sept-et-le-va, which was seven times as much as he had laid upon his card.
Quinze-et-le-va, was attending the player’s humour, who, perhaps, was resolved to follow his fancy, and still lay his money upon the same card, which was done by crooking the third corner of his card: if this card came up by the dealing of the talliere, it made him win fifteen times as much money as he staked.
Trent-et-le-va was marked by the lucky player by crooking the end of the fourth corner of his card, which, coming up, made him win thirty-three times as much money as he staked.
Soissante-et-le-va was the highest chance that could happen in the game, for it paid sixty-seven times as much money as was staked. It was seldom won except by some player who resolved to push his good fortune to the utmost.
The players sat round a table, the talliere in the midst of them, with the bank of gold before him, and the punters or players each having a book of 13 cards, laying down one, two, three, or more, as they pleased, with money upon them, as stakes; then the talliere took the pack in his hand and turned them up — the bottom card appearing being called the fasse; he then paid half the value of the stakes laid down by the punters upon any card of that sort.
After the fasse was turned up, and the talliere and croupiere had looked round the cards on the table, and taken advantage of the money laid on them, the former proceeded with his deal; and the next card appearing, whether the king, queen, ace, or whatever it might be, won for the player, the latter might receive it, or making paroli, as before said, go on to sept-et-le-va. The card after that won for the talliere, who took money from each player’s card of that sort, and brought it into his bank — obviously a prodigious advantage in the talliere over the players.
The talliere, if the winning card was a king, and the next after it was a ten, said (showing the cards all round), ‘King wins, ten loses,’ paying the money to such cards as are of the winning sort, and taking the money from those who lost, added it to his bank. This done, he went on with the deal, it might be after this fashion — ‘Ace wins, five loses; ‘Knave wins, seven loses;’ and so on, every other card alternately winning and losing, till all the pack was dealt but the last card.
The last card turned up was, by the rules of the game, for the advantage of the talliere; although a player might have one of the same sort, still it was allowed to him as one of the dues of his office, and he paid nothing on it.
The bold player who was lucky and adventurous, and could push on his couch with a considerable stake to sept-et-le-va, quinze-et-le-va, trente-et-le-va, &c., must in a wonderful manner have multiplied his couch, or first stake; but this was seldom done; and the loss of the players, by the very nature of the game, invariably exceeded that of the bank; in fact, this game was altogether in favour of the bank; and yet it is evident that — in spite of this obvious conviction — the game must have been one of the most tempting and fascinating that was ever invented.
Our English adventurers made this game very different to what it was in France, for there, by royal edict, the public at large were not allowed to play at more than a franc or ten-penny bank, — and the losses or gains could not bring desolation to a family; but in England our punters could do as they liked — staking from one guinea to one hundred guineas and more, upon a card, ‘as was often seen at court,’ says the old author, my informant. When the couch was alpieued, parolied, to sept-et-le-va, quinze-et-le-va, trente-et-le-va, &c., the punter’s gains were prodigious, miraculous; and if fortune befriended him so as to bring his stake to soissante-et-le-va, he was very likely to break the bank, by gaining a sum which no talliere could pay after such tremendous multiplication. But this rarely happened. The general advantage was with the bank — as must be quite evident from the explanation of the game — besides the standing rule that no two cards of the same sort turning up could win for the players; the second always won for the bank. In addition to this there were other ‘privileges’ which operated vastly in favour of the banker.
However, it was ‘of so bewitching a nature,’ says our old writer, ‘by reason of the several multiplications and advantages which it seemingly offered to the unwary punter, that a great many like it so well that they would play at small game rather than give out; and rather than not play at all would punt at six-penny, three-penny, nay, a twopenny bank, — so much did the hope of winning the quinze-et-le-va and the trente-et-le-va intoxicate them.’
Of course there were frauds practised at Basset by the talliere, or banker, in addition to his prescriptive advantages. The cards might be dealt so as not to allow the punter any winning throughout the pack; and it was in the power of the dealer to let the punter have as many winnings as he thought convenient, and no more!
It is said that Basset was invented by a noble Venetian, who was punished with exile for the contrivance. The game was prohibited by Louis XIV, in 1691, and soon after fell into oblivion in France, although flourishing in England. It was also called Barbacole and Hocca.
Button Men is a dice game for two players, invented by James Ernest of Cheapass Games and first released in 1999.Games are short, typically taking less than ten minutes to play. Each player is represented by a button of their choice. Buttons are metal or plastic discs, about 2–2.5 inches (about 5–6.5 centimeters) in diameter, with a pin on the back that can be used to fasten them to clothing. They bear the name and illustration of the combatant (the “Button Man”) whose role the player is assuming. They also indicate the number, size, and skills (if any) of polyhedral dice to be used by the player.
Button Men is a game designed for fan conventions and other public venues. It can be played almost anywhere on short notice (provided the dice are at hand), and games are quick to complete. Buttons are meant to be worn on clothing, bags, or other accessories, advertising that the wearer has a button to play with and is open to challenges. Buttons also frequently advertise something else, such as a company, a webcomic, or another game. The Sluggy Freelance set of buttons, for example, features characters from that comic, and the BRAWL set features characters from another Cheapass game. In 2000, Button Men Online won the Origins Awards for Best Abstract Board Game of 2000 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game 1999 .
Button Men can easily be extended simply by creating more buttons. It has continued to be so extended since its inception; as of 2004, over 200 buttons have been printed. Many are by now out of print, though many others are still available, primarily via purchase from the Cheapass Games web site. Companies other than Cheapass must pay a licensing fee to use the Button Men artwork in distributing their own buttons.
Button Men Online, a website developed by Dana Huyler and officially endorsed by Cheapass Games, allows users to play games over the internet via a web-based interface with e-mailed notifications. Button Men Online features most of the printed buttons, an additional 250+ “buttons” that exist only on the site, and a random button generator. In 2003, Button Men Online won the Origins Award for Best Play-by-mail game of 2002.
A typical housie/bingo ticket is shown to the right. It contains fifteen numbers, arranged in nine columns by three rows. Each row contains five numbers and four blank spaces. Each column contains either one, two, or very rarely three, numbers:
The first column contains numbers from 1 to 9,
The second column numbers from 10 to 19,
The third 20 to 29 and so on up until the last column, which contains numbers from 80 to 90 (the 90 being placed in this column as well).
The game is presided over by a caller, whose job it is to call out the numbers and validate winning tickets. He will announce the prize or prizes for each game before starting.The caller will then usually say “Eyes down” to indicate that he is about to start. He then begins to call numbers as they are randomly selected, either by an electronic Random Number Generator (RNG), by drawing counters from a bag or by using balls in a mechanical draw machine. Calling takes the format of simple repetition in the framework, “Both the fives, fifty five”, or “Two and three, twenty three.”
The different winning combinations are:
Line — covering a horizontal line of five numbers on the ticket.
Two Lines — Covering any two lines on the same ticket.
Full House — covering all fifteen numbers on the ticket.
In New Zealand in bonus (Super Housie) games, often three lines may be claimed – top, middle and bottom, usually with much larger prizes, are also played at various times throughout the session.
In the UK, however, it is most common for a line game to be followed directly by a two line game and a full house game, or just by a full house game.
In the UK’s National Bingo Game only a full house game is ever played.
In all cases, the last number called must be in the winning sequence.
When players first come to the venue (often a church hall, rugby club or other place with sufficient tables and chairs, including in the UK many specifically designed bingo clubs) they can buy a book of tickets. Players generally play between one and six books. In New Zealand a book usually contains fifty tickets which are played over the course of the night. In UK bingo clubs, playing is divided into sessions with different books, each with a designated number of pages. Players in the UK usually prefer to buy books of 6 tickets containing all possible numbers in different combinations.
As each number is called, players check to see if that number appears on their tickets. If it does, they will mark it with a special marker called a “dabber” or a “dauber”, shown here. When all the numbers required to win a prize have been marked off, the player calls out “Line” or “House” depending on the prize, and an official or member of staff will come and check the claim:
In the UK with the increasing computerization of bingo systems, an Auto-Validate system is often used in large clubs where a 1 to 8 digit security code is read out by a member of staff and checked against the entry for that ticket on the system. This saves the club from the time-consuming exercise of reading out every number on the ticket.
In smaller clubs, however, each number in the winning combination must be read out. The caller will check to see if each number has been called, and if it has, he will say something similar to “House correct – please pay out”.
There will often be an interval halfway through the game. In Australia and New Zealand Super Housie tickets are played and raffles (if there are any) are drawn. In UK bingo halls it is most common for Mechanised Cash Bingo to be played.
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