News about World of Card Games, the website for card players who love Spades, Hearts, Euchre, Gin Rummy, Double Deck Pinochle, Twenty-Nine, 3-5-8 (aka Sergeant Major), and Go Fish!
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NOTICE: This post was originally posted on Medium, but has later been moved to the official World Of Card Games blog to consolidate all posts.
Most game sites will let you change the way you look, and it’s the same at World of Card Games. Even so, not everyone realizes it. Today’s post is a short one that explains how to do that.
Just click the “Avatar” link in the upper left corner of the screen. This causes a panel to open that’s filled with all the possible images you can use for your profile picture while playing a game. You can scroll down using the scrollbar at the right hand side of the panel, and when you see the one you want to use, click it. You’ll see a green check mark briefly appear, and the panel will close.
Now you’re all set. You’ll see your new avatar the next time you play a game. And you can change your avatar to something new anytime you want – all free of charge. Enjoy!
You can choose from a wide variety of images for your profile pic!
NOTICE: This post was originally posted on Medium, but has later been moved to the official World Of Card Games blog to consolidate all posts.
A player at the site recently sent me a Spades hand history. She’s been playing at the site for many years, and thinks this is the best hand she’s ever seen. Here’s a screenshot taken of the replayer that she downloaded after the hand was finished.
There are at least 6 sure winners in South’s hand, and probably more
She has 7 spades cards, and the 6 highest spades (9 through ace). And she has the ace and king of clubs. What do you think? What would you have bid? I think I would have bid 9, but it would depend on the other players’ bids. Notice that she was also extra lucky in being last to bid, so she’d be able to adjust her bid based on what everyone else already bid.
If you want to see what the bids were, and what happened during the hand, click this link to view the full replay. It is well worth taking a look if you enjoy playing Spades. Just keep clicking the “next” button to see each step during the hand — which was really an eye-opener!
This was a pretty amazing hand! I do think it’s the best hand anyone has ever sent me. But it’s not the best one that’s possible. The very best hand would consist of an entire handful of spades — from 2 to ace. And that’s a valid hand, too — literally just as valid as any other hand. I’d love to see that, one day, myself! I wonder which is more rare: a hand completely full of spades, or picking all the right lottery numbers for the Mega Millions? I’m not going to try to work out the odds… 😃
NOTICE: This post was originally posted on Medium, but has later been moved to the official World Of Card Games blog to consolidate all posts.
Someone sent me a Spades hand history from World of Card Games to ask what I thought: Was their bid too high? The player is “West” in the screenshot above. They were first to bid, so they had no information about anyone else’s bids.
When I’m first to bid, I’ll usually err on the side of caution. So let’s see what we have here. The player bid 2. Do I agree?
At first glance, I’d say it was entirely reasonable. As you can see from the screenshot above, they’ve got the king of spades and one extra trump card. That king of spades is very likely to take a trick, but there’s a small possibility that it might be trumped by the ace, with some bad luck.
Clearly, the player was also counting on their king of clubs taking a trick. I also think this is reasonable. They’ve got three clubs. It’s always possible that someone else is long in clubs, and that might result in their king of clubs getting trumped. But on average, I think it’s usually safe to count that king as taking a trick, with only three of the suit in my hand.
However, this turned out to be one of those cases where the odds were not in favor of West. Late in the hand, when West tried to take a trick by trumping over their right-hand opponent using their king of spades, the left-hand opponent took the opportunity to trump that card with the ace of spades! This was the worst-case scenario that they didn’t really anticipate. If they had held the king and just discarded a hearts card, they might have saved their bid.
