World of Card Games

This morning's update fixed a couple of minor bugs.

In addition, I tinkered with the strategy of the Spades bots. There are small changes in their bidding and also in the way that they play.

Please keep in mind that sometimes it's hard to know what to bid, and the bots are not perfect! If you spot a particularly egregious bidding or playing error, where it's obvious that a bot did something bone-headed in the course of a hand of cards, and you want to do something to help correct it, you can! Please try to remember to download the hand history as soon as that hand is finished. Once you download it, you can send it to me, and tell me what you think was wrong. With this information, I can rework the code to improve the bots.

For those who do not know about the hand history, that is just a small text file with a URL (link) in it. The link is to a "replayer" at World of Card Games. When you copy and paste the URL into a web browser, you will get a "replay" of that hand, showing who bid what, and how each card was played. All the cards will be shown face-up straight from the start. This link is an example of a "hand history".  You can click it to see how it works. But don't click it if you are currently playing a game at World of Card Games; it will not work, in that case.

You can only download the hand history if you are a registered user and signed in. Also, it's only available for 30 seconds after the hand finishes. So grab it quickly if you want to save it! To download it, click the little floppy disk icon that appears near your avatar. You can see that in the screenshot, below:

click the floppy disk icon to download hand history

Today, we have a guest blog from DevilDoc about the nil bid in Spades. I have added some links to definitions of "jargon" terms to help beginners. There's also an intro to nil bidding at the World of Card Games website. - Marya

The nil bid in Spades is the strongest of all the bids one can make. Worth 100 points, it represents 20% of the total game score if your partnership makes it. It also costs your partnership 100 points if you get set plus the penalty for your partner’s bid.

How to bid a nil: The ideal hand should be rich in distribution; i.e., singletons, doubletons, and voids. Ideally, you don’t want any honor [face] cards but if you have any, they should be protected by at least two low cards. The maximum number of spades should not exceed three, with no higher card than the Jack (25% probability of being set). While some will use the Queen of Spades, your probability of being set rises to 50%.

How to defend a nil: The bidding player needs to focus on his loser cards. You want to discard your highest cards as soon as safely possible. If your partner is running a long suit or you have a good distribution, that is the easiest way to get rid of your riskiest cards. The bidder’s partner needs to lead out with the highest card of his longest suit and keep running that suit, from high to low cards if possible. If the bidder’s partner’s hand is weak, he should focus on what the opponents are leading to see if they can cover your cards.

- DevilDoc

You can view a few player statistics while you are at a table, after this morning's update. Just click any player's avatar, and a "mini stats panel" will pop up for each player [Edit July 24 2016 - click your name to get the stats panel to appear; click any other player's avatar for the same effect]:

mini stats panel

The first number is their Elo rating. This only appears in games that have rankings (currently Hearts and Spades). If all that you see is a dash, then the player is not yet ranked.

The 2nd number is how many games the player has "completed". This is the same as the number shown as "Finished" in your own stats panel.

The 3rd number tells you how much the person tends to quit games. You should not expect this to be a perfect 0%, since people sometimes get kicked from games accidentally, or have to leave due to unforeseen circumstances. Only the last 16 games are tracked, so it's pretty easy to improve this score with just a few games. Note: it is not counted as quitting if

• you leave a table that has not yet started
• you leave a bots-only table before the game finishes
• you leave a private table before the game finishes

This score is supplied to give you an idea about how reliable the player is. The higher the percent, the more likely it is that the person might skip out on your game.

The update this morning also fixed a long-standing issue that players were able to sign in from a table. It's convenient to be able to do this if you forget to log in from the home page, but some people were using it to manipulate their stats by logging in just before a win at a table. It's no longer allowed, and there's an obvious reminder at the top of the home page letting you know when you're not logged in.

sign in from the home page only!

Other changes: The cards are now fanned wider by default in the Twenty-Nine game, and chat lobbies now hang around for 24 hours at least. Also, bot strategies have been slightly improved in Spades and Double Deck Pinochle.

Ranked games have been added to Spades!

You will only be ranked if you choose to play a ranked game, which is shown in purple in the list of tables. Here's an example:

ranked tables are purple in the list of tables

Ranked tables are more strict than regular ones:

1. You must be registered and have finished at least 10 games to get into one.
2. You cannot start a game with bots! They can be invited if someone leaves, however.
3. If you quit, and do not return within 2 3 minutes, you are banned from ranked Spades games for 4 hours 2 hours [ban interval was changed on August 21 2016].
4. Quitting counts as a loss to your Elo rating. If you quit, you take a loss to your two opponents. (The Elo rating of the quitter's teammate is computed independent of this - it depends entirely on whether their team wins or loses, as long as they stick to the end of the game).

The idea is to make ranked tables a little more serious than regular ones. People who enter a ranked game should be committed to sticking to the game, and not quitting at the drop of a hat.

Note: Since Spades is a team game, Elo ratings are computed as if you are participating in two matches, one against each opponent. You are not ranked against your teammate.

BTW you can also get to ranked games from the Spades menu. Click the "Menu" button at the lower right of the Spades game panel, and then click the "Play Ranked Spades" link to be taken to a ranked table:

get to ranked tables using the Menu button

In addition to ranked games, the update this morning applied some more changes. Trick cards can now be piled vertically. And the cards are fanned wider in Hearts, Spades, and Double Deck Pinochle. I hope these additions will make it easier to use the site. Feedback is welcome.

The cards in your hand are now fanned wider in Hearts, Spades, and Double Deck Pinochle. Also, the chat button and chat input are moved closer to your avatar. Here's the new view:
For comparison, here's the previous look:

There are two settings for fanning your cards. I had some feedback that people were misclicking cards because the cards were not clear and separate enough on smaller screens. This change is intended to help with that.

This also helps an issue that was plaguing Double Deck Pinochle players. This game starts with 20 cards in your hand, and the chat bubble would obscure a few of these if you chatted early on in the hand. With your chat bubble moved way over to the left, this should be less of a problem now.

Chat bubble in Double Deck Pinochle

Different card decks have different dimensions, so you may want to try using a new deck if your current one doesn't look as good with the new view.

This morning, the server was down for a brief time in order to apply some updates.

Registered players can now chat after their game has finished at World of Card Games! After the game finishes, you will now see three buttons: "Home", "Chat", and "Play ..." (see screenshot below).

Click Chat button to chat with the Registered players after your game

Clicking the "Home" button takes you back to the main home page, where you can decide what new game you want to play. Clicking the "Play ..." button takes you directly to a new game of the same type that you just finished (for example, Hearts or Spades).

Clicking the "Chat" button takes you to a "chat" table where only the registered players from the game you just finished are invited. This gives you time to discuss the game in as much detail as you like, should you care to do so. The "Chat" button goes away after 30 seconds, so be sure to use it as soon as possible if you are interested in a chat with your group of players. Caveat: No one is obliged to go to the chat table, so you may find that no one joins you there.

If any who played with you goes to the chat table after your game is finished, this chat table will show up in the list of tables. Here's a screenshot of how to recognize it:

"chat" table shows up in the list of tables

Another new feature is the ability to save your "hand history" in Spades. The hand history is already familiar to those who play Euchre. Registered players can download the history of their previous hand, and replay it in the browser to review all the cards played, one step at a time. In Euchre, this feature can be a nice tool to discuss strategy. It is also very useful to report bugs in the bots to me. I'm hoping Spades players will find it useful as well. Sometimes, people report problems with the bots, but it's too time-consuming for me to figure out just what happened. With this new feature, if the bots make a boneheaded mistake, you can grab the hand history and send it to me with a description of what went wrong. I will be more likely to fix a problem when I know exactly what happened, and can reproduce the issue.

To download the hand history, click the old-fashioned "floppy disk" icon that appears next to your avatar after a hand has finished. You can see what it looks like in the screenshot here.

Click the floppy disk icon to download the hand history in Spades

Hm, I can't believe I just called a floppy disk "old-fashioned"! :)

Another important change: at ranked tables, the Elo ratings now reward the first-place player only. Elo ratings in Hearts was discussed in the previous blog post. I did not receive a lot of feedback, one way or the other, about this... but most players appear to like the idea, so I've made the change. I will continue to keep track of any feedback on the issue. Please post to Facebook or Twitter or here on the blog if you have comments. (FYI: anonymous posts are not treated very seriously; anyone can post anonymously multiple times, so I don't consider them to be so useful.)

I took part in another tournament this morning. It was fun!

During the game I was presented with a bit of a puzzler. I was dealt 7 Spades but most of them were pretty low.

what would you bid with 7 Spades?

I wound up bidding 3, while nana bid 6. Notice the scores and bag situation. I've posted more details on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/WorldOfCardGames/photos/a.1453220478280028.1073741829.1384938725108204/1566662763602465/?type=1&theater

You don't have to be a Facebook user to see the Facebook post. I am curious to know what you would have bid, and why - you can comment here, or on Facebook.

Here's a screenshot from a recent Spades card game. Check out the scores: we are nearing the end of the game. My team needs to give 1 extra trick to our opponents in order to roll them. I have no Spades at all:

click image to enlarge

When I first got this hand, I was tempted to go nil, but I didn't like the situation in my Clubs cards; not even one really low card.

So I bid 1, hoping my partner and I could roll our opponents. I really didn't think I'd be able to take much with this hand, given that I had no Spades. Since I had no Spades, I knew everyone else was holding more Spades than usual, on average. I was counting on those Spades to win most of the tricks.

Alas it was not be! Here's the final score:

we got rolled!

I was surprised when I wound up taking 3 tricks! Of course, if I had bid 3, I probably would not have actually been able to take them. Our opponents gave me 2 tricks. They discarded a card on one of my Hearts instead of playing a Spade. And when I played my King of Diamonds, they didn't take it with the Ace.

Not only did our team not roll our opponents, we got rolled ourselves. We each wound up taking 2 extra tricks (IIRC our opponents had a total bid of 6).

I'm making this post because I'm curious to get comments about what you'd bid with the hand above. You can see the situation. It's near the end of the game, and I'd like to bid 5 so that we could possibly end with a win, but there's no way I'd get 5 points out of my hand. Possibly I should have bid 2? But we still wouldn't have won, even if we hadn't rolled. Anyone have a better idea?

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

winning a trophy is hard work!

A few weeks ago, I created a Spades league at World of Card Games, at the request of one player. It turned out to be a fairly popular idea! We've had a few bumps in the road in getting our tournaments started, but overall I think it's been a fun experience for most of the people involved.

Running the league requires a certain amount of administrative work. Currently, I am the sole administrator and tournament director. I'm working on some tools to make it easier for others to run tournaments. That will help to make it possible for tourneys to run more frequently... And that could mean more room for tournaments or leagues in card games other than Spades.

I've had a vote (from Benno - you may have met this player on the site) to run Euchre tournaments at World of Card Games. Is anyone else interested? How about other games, for example Hearts?

I should make it clear that if people are interested in running tournaments in other games, or even forming other leagues, it's not just something that's up to me. You can start a league and run tournaments completely independent of me. There are a few sites that I know of that can be used to create leagues: Case's Ladder, MyLeague (which is a division of Case's Ladder), and Eliters. There may be more. It will take a little bit of internet savvy and some cooperation with other players, but you can totally do it if you are committed to it. I'm willing to provide support if you need it, too.

I've set up a Spades League called "Jungle Gym Spades" at MyLeague.com. Here's the FAQ for those who are interested or curious.

jungle gym spades league

(1) What is a league, and why join?

Probably the primary reason that players join a league is to engage in a more competitive form of fun than they find in the casual, "pick-up" games online. MyLeague maintains a ranking system where you can compare your status with others. However, if you are not competitive, keep reading!

Another reason to join is to find like-minded players. A number of people at World of Card Games have set up private tables where people meet and play on a regular basis. You'll never know about these great, fun people unless someone gives you the "secret handshake" to get in. My hope is that joining the league will allow more of these folks to find each other and arrange games at specified times. MyLeague has a forum where you can post messages, and you can send "emails" to other members of the league without having to reveal your own, personal email address.

(2) What is a tournament?

A tournament is just a scheduled game... In league play it is a series of scheduled games. Several teams play, and then the winners are pitted against each other. They might go through several rounds of games before the two last winning teams face off against each other. These types of tournaments will only happen if we get enough players who are interested in it. I don't think we need tournaments to make the league a success, but I hope they will happen if enough people would enjoy them.

(3) Why do I have to join yet another site to be in a league?

In the long-term, I hope to have support for tournaments, personal messaging, and even forums directly at World of Card Games. I've opened the league to make these things available for people who'd like them right now.

(4) I don't play Spades, I want a Euchre league!

Okay! Anyone can start a league, so go ahead! If you'd rather not be an admin, I'm willing to start leagues for Euchre, Hearts, Twenty-Nine, or any of the other games on the site, if there's an interest.

(5) What happens if I join the league?

Time will tell. We need enough players in the league to make it useful to everyone. My suggestion is that after joining, you should post a message to the forum introducing yourself to everyone. That way people can get familiar with others in the league.

(6) Are there any other requirements?

You should be a registered player at World of Card Games. You need a valid email address to sign up with the league - be sure to use the same user name that you use at World of Card Games (that's user name - you do not have to use the same email address, although it is probably helpful to do so). If you have any trouble joining, please write me at marya@worldofcardgames.com. One final thing: All league members are expected to be civil to each other! Please be as polite and tolerant to everyone as you would be if they were standing in front of you.

Possibly the most frequent complaint that I get at World of Card Games is about people quitting games. I've been collecting some statistics to see how the site is affected by habitual quitters. Here are the results!

The charts below are histograms that show the number of players divided up according to their quitting patterns. Players who rarely quit - between 0 and 10% of their games - are "bucketed" in the first column. Players who quit a lot - 90%-100% of their games - are bucketed in the last column. The rest are divided into buckets between those percentiles.

Private tables are ignored in these statistics, as are tables with only a single human player. Quitting from such tables is not a major problem. On the other hand, if you enter a game and then quickly leave, you are getting counted as a quitter for the purpose of these statistics. So the charts may make things look a little (or a lot?) worse than they are.



Euchre is a fairly quick game - you are usually done in 10 minutes. Quitters are not as big a problem, here.
One noticeable thing is that the games that take longer tend to be affected more by quitting. I do wonder how big a factor this is in quitting.

The server is now up and humming again at World of Card Games! Sorry for the interruption in service.

A new feature has been added to the Spades game. If a player leaves the game, the remaining (human) players are given the opportunity to fold their hand and re-deal. All current tricks taken and bids made are wiped away - the hand is effectively a do-over.

To make this happen, all players must agree to re-deal by clicking the "redeal" message box, which appears in the upper left corner. Redeals are allowed a maximum of 5 times per game.

redeal link in upper left corner

This is a new, experimental feature. As always, feedback is welcome. In particular, if you notice any problems, please let me know.

[Edit: as of December 27, 2015, you are given 30 seconds to vote for a redeal.]

The server was down for a brief time this morning to apply some bug fixes. I apologize for the disruption in your games!

Here's the summary of changes:

On occasion, the "Knock" button did not show up in Gin Rummy, when it should have. This is now fixed.

In Twenty-Nine, the "Accept" button became disabled when a new player entered the table. This is also fixed.

Some players have pointed out that the bots will waste a high trump card when defending a nil bid. They tended to use their high cards to trump, rather than bleed out trump cards. This is now fixed. Thanks to those who pointed this out, and helped to improve the bots!

Finally, your chat bubble has been shifted to the side a little further, so it will not obscure your cards anymore.

[tl;dr: so far as I can tell, cards are dealt perfectly randomly at World of Card Games. If you think that the deck is stacked, it's probably an odd run of bad (or good) luck that you're seeing.]

Sometimes, players will tell me that they think the deck has not been properly shuffled. They've had an unusual run of bad luck. Perhaps in Euchre, they haven't seen a bower in their last 5 hands, and it looks suspicious. In Gin Rummy, their opponent was dealt a Gin hand immediately. Or in Spades, they've been dealt a hand with no trump cards too many times to be believable.

At World of Card Games, the cards are dealt randomly, and I see no way that the deck could be stacked. Here's how the deal of cards works in every game on the site:

1. Every time that cards are dealt, an entirely new, ordered deck of cards is created by the system. It's as if I took a fresh pack of cards out of a sealed deck; the old deck is not re-used.
2. Then, these cards are "shuffled" using a random number generator.

That's it! It's very simple. You may see odd results, just like you might see a long run of "heads" in a repeated coin toss. But it's just random.

For those who are curious, just what is the probability of getting a trump-less hand in Spades? Here's an explanation:

A hand in Spades consists of 13 cards from a deck of 52. The number of combinations of such cards is 52! / (13! * (52 - 13)! ). According to Google's calculator, that is 635,013,559,600 (over 635 billion). That number includes all trump-less hands, and all hands with trumps as well.

To be clear, this does not count combinations in which the cards are merely reordered. For example, this count includes an entire hand filled with Spades, but only one such hand - the order of cards in the hand does not matter. For those who are hoping, this means the chance of ever getting a hand completely filled with Spades is 1 in 635 billion. "Not very likely" would be an overstatement.

all spades - dream on!

Okay, so how many of these hands are there that exclude trumps (Spades)? That is computed by taking all combinations of cards from a trump-less deck. A trump-less deck contains 39 cards (52 cards minus 13 Spades suit cards). Applying the formula for combinations again, we get 39! / (13! * (39-13)!). Google's calculator says this is 8,122,425,444 - about 8 billion different combinations of non-Spades cards.

So, there are about 8 billion trump-less hands in all 635 billion possible hands of Spades. The probability of getting a trump-less hand is the ratio of trump-less hands to all hands, which is about 1.28%. Not very likely, but it happens.

To test all this out, I ran a million simulations of Spades cards being dealt exactly as they are done at World of Card Games (using the same computer code). Here are the results:

• There were 4,000,000 hands dealt in total
• There were a total of 51368 trump-less hands, which is, indeed, 1.28% of 4 million [100 * (51368 / 4000000) = 1.28%]
• The count of trump-less cards for the first player was 12772, second player was 12790, third player was 12996, and fourth player was 12810.

In case you are wondering about that last bit, a certain amount of variation is expected between the different players. Notice the third player was getting slightly more of the trump-less hands in the above experiment. When I ran the experiment again, it was the second player who got most trump-less hands (12945). A little bit of variation is expected because of the random nature of the events.

Tom Servo says "want to play a game of Spades?"

In June, I took a stab at improving the robot strategy in the game of Spades.

I've taken more time to revamp the Spades bots, and those changes were deployed this morning. Both bidding, and choosing a card to play, have been substantially reworked. The bots are still far from perfect - there are some subtleties in Spades that I haven't handled, but I will eventually get to them. For now, I think that their new behavior makes them better players in general, and better partners, too.

If anyone notices specific bad habits that linger on, I'd like to hear about it. Feel free to write me at marya@worldofcardgames.com or just post the issue in the comments section.

It surprises me, but I've had only a few complaints about the bot strategy in Spades. I rarely play with bots, so their problems haven't bugged me too much, and I haven't been highly motivated to fix them. However, when I do play, I've noticed one pretty obvious and irritating behavior: they tend to waste Kings. They'll play the King of clubs, for example, before the Ace of clubs has been played. This is a good way to lose the trick! With today's deploy, this bug is fixed.

In addition, someone mentioned to me that the bots sometimes bid nil when they are holding 5 spades! You will find various sites that recommend you not bid nil with 4 or more spades in your hand (e.g. sky_rockets1's page or the Rules of Spades site). This problem has been fixed as well.

I am far from finished with the bots. More improvements will be coming, when I have the time for it.

let's hope he's smiling because he got the bid right!

Last night, I attended another live, in-person card game session. We started out to play Spades. It turned out that my partner was new to the game, so it was decided to play a few rounds open-handed, so we could explain the rules and a bit of strategy. This turned out to be an interesting exercise.

Spades game, first hand, East leads. I'm playing the King and the Ace is still out there.

The initial hand is shown in the photo above. The dealer is North. I am South, and I bid 2. I did this despite the fact that I had a fairly strong set of spades. My thought process went like this in developing my bid:

• I have a lot of clubs, almost 50% of the clubs at the table. I can't count on the King of clubs winning a trick; it will very likely be trumped. So I won't include that in my bid.
• My diamond and hearts cards are useless.
• I may not be able to create a void very early in the game. I felt uncomfortable assuming that my one of my high spades would not be trumped by the Ace at some point.
• My best bet seemed to be aiming low, and dumping a couple high cards where possible. I figured that with a bid of 2, I might wind up with one bag if I took tricks with all of my spades cards. I thought that I'd pretty easily be able to dump the King of clubs.

Notice the total of all bids is 9! That leaves 4 bags on the table. After all bids were made, I was sure I'd make my bid, and definitely did not want to take a trick with the King of clubs.

The game started with East playing the 4 of clubs. With this play, it seemed unlikely to me that East was holding the Ace of clubs. I figured the Ace must be held by West or by my partner, North.

Whoever had the Ace was probably counting on using it to take a trick. I decided I would dump my King now. If my West opponent had the Ace, they would probably feel compelled to use it in order to make their bid. If my partner had the Ace, they would surely play it even though it meant trumping me. Anyone who plays a King in the first round must know that it will very likely be taken. My partner should realize that I knew that, and that I must be trying to dump my King. Especially seeing how many bags were at the table, it should be clear I was trying to get rid of a high card which might lead to a bag.

It turned out that my partner was holding the Ace of clubs. Since we were playing open-handed, my opponents both advised my partner not to trump me ("never trump your partner")... when in fact I wanted that to happen!

When I explained to the table my reasoning for playing the King, both of my opponents disagreed. They told me that if they were my partner, they would never overtrump me if they had the Ace - instead they would let me take the trick (in this case, this would likely lead to me earning at least one bag).

This kind of surprised me. In Spades, when there are so many bags on the table, it makes more sense to try to load the other team with all the bags, rather than to try to set them. So, I would try to take as few tricks as possible. I would assume my partner was aware that playing a King when the Ace has not yet been played would almost certainly lead to it being taken, and would therefore feel no need to refrain from trumping the King.

I am curious to know what other people think ... Do you just never trump your partner unless you have no choice? Or do you sometimes trump when it seems clear that they haven't planned on taking the trick?

A few days ago, I attended another live in-person card game event - my third!

We had an odd number of people, so it was decided to play a 5-person game of "Oh Heck!" while waiting for more to arrive. I have never played this before, and was taught the rules on the fly. I did not have a stroke of beginner's luck, and lost badly. It will take some practice to improve.

After this I moved on to a game of Spades. I had a great partner. We took the lead and never looked back. I knew that one of our opponents was a complete beginner, learning the game as we played. It was only after the game was over that I discovered that our other opponent was also relatively new to the game. So I felt a twinge of guilt. We should have arranged the partners differently so that the handicap was more even.

My last game of the evening was Hearts. I usually do poorly at Hearts... and I kept making errors in following suit or throwing out my card at the wrong time. It didn't help that I was getting tired. I wound up losing that game as well.

Despite the overall loss, I had a great time! For me, the social aspect of card games overrides my success ratio. I'm looking forward to the next event!

I'm currently sitting at the open "private" table described in my previous post. Join in if you feel like playing! (If you're wondering, yes, I'm early!)
 ...

There are three of us at a table now, just need one more!

...
The game is in progress!
...

Well... lost that one. Sorry p!

New table open with 2 seats available.

...

Won that one... new game is in progress!

...

Won the next one... thx p! Onto the next!

...
and won that one too!

Okay, this experiment is over for today.

I want to thank all you wonderful people who joined in! And thanks to my many excellent partners and opponents... thanks to those who patiently partnered with me as I got set. And thanks to those good sports who hung in there to play even when they were getting defeated.

This went so well, I will certainly schedule another one. I will probably play at different games, as well.

If you have any comments, positive or negative, please post them to this blog or write me!