World of Card Games

I recently participated in one of our Jungle Gym Spades online tournaments. My partner and I progressed to Round 2, but we lost. It was a fun game... and I had a very interesting hand during Round 2. If you enjoy considering Spades strategy, I think you will find it interesting to read my discussion of this hand on the World of Card Games Facebook page. Take a look and let me know what you think in the comments: https://www.facebook.com/WorldOfCardGames/photos/a.1453220478280028.1073741829.1384938725108204/1557288481206560/?type=1

There's a Hearts tutorial at World of Card Games. It's designed to introduce you to the mechanics of Hearts, but barely scratches the surface when it comes to strategy. The help box has a few hints, too, but it's minimal.

After playing a few hundred games of Hearts, I think I've gotten a little better at it. This was, in part, due to some players who discussed strategy with me. Thanks to those who did so in a polite manner, you know who you are!

It's nice to share, so I wrote up a discussion of Hearts strategy and placed it on the site. There's a comment section where anyone can add their thoughts, and you can also tweet them, or post in the comments section here. Or send me an email. I will rewrite sections of that page based upon feedback.

I want to mention that I like the way that some more expert players try to help those who are beginners to the games. I don't mean the ones who mock beginners! I mean the ones who offer to explain or give a short tip to people who confess to being inexperienced. It benefits everyone to help those who are new. They are more likely to continue to play when people are friendly and not mean. It's a win-win to get more good players to your favorite card game.

The server was down for a short time early this morning to apply a few bug fixes: in particular, the game timer that had been added with the last update was buggy, and is now fixed. Also, in Firefox, some people noticed a player's name hanging around (literally, attached to their cursor) after they clicked into a game from the list of tables. This has been fixed.

I had some postcards made up as advertisements for World of Card Games. The goal is to publicize the site. I don't know if this is a good strategy, but I feel there are probably a lot of people out there who would enjoy playing cards online, and they just don't realize it's an option. This is an attempt at letting people know about the site. I plan to drop the postcards off at senior centers, libraries, and similar places.

If you enjoy playing at World of Card Games, and you know some place where you could leave a card or two, write to me! My email address is marya@worldofcardgames.com. I can mail a few to you.

Here's the image that I used for the postcard (a big thanks to Karen for that glowing testimonial!). It's 8.5" x 5.5":

postcard for World of Card Games

I had these cards printed up at Staples.com. Here's a mini-review: The process is fairly easy, and the price is reasonable (about $60 for 100). I have two caveats: when you upload your image, they display that image in a way that makes it look as if it is too wide and will be cropped at the sides. If you decided to get postcards from them, you should upload your image and ignore what's displayed there. Proceed through their print process all the way until near the end, just before you have to buy. You'll be shown a "real-life" picture of your image which looks wider than what you'd seen on their edit page. The latter is just a draft and is not accurate (at least it was not for me).

It took only a few days after ordering for me to get my cards in the mail. I'm pretty happy with the result overall! Three of the cards had some bleed (red into black) but the rest are fine.