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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After this morning's update to the site, you can now play ranked Twenty-Nine!
ranked twenty-nine
There were a few other updates made, as well. In Double Deck Pinochle, the bots now use the "Jack leadback". Click that link to learn more about how it works. There's also a youtube video about the Jack leadback. The bots have had a few other strategy improvements as well. Thanks to those who sent me feedback over the last several weeks!
In addition, players at ranked tables are now allowed 3 minutes to get back to their table before getting penalized (previously it was 2 minutes).
In Euchre, the bots have had a couple of minor strategy improvements. Also, you are now given less time - 15 seconds - to choose the up card or a suit. This seems long enough even for beginners.
Finally, someone wrote to me with a question about meld bidding. This question made me think my original page on Double Deck Pinochle strategy was insufficient. So I've added a new page on meld bidding. Some players will have their own established meld bidding signals, and those may not agree with mine. In Pinochle, what matters is that the two teammates agree about the signals being made. It also helps to be able to read what your opponents are signalling. If you do not know your partner well, you may want to discuss signals with them after the game. There's a "chat" table button for this purpose. You can also send messages to a player (this only works if you have "liked" them).
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.
In addition, the site uses a new audio library that works on more devices. I have an Android tablet where alerts are now audible, so this is an improvement for Android users, at least. [Edit Mar 12 2016: I want to mention that this library breaks the site for versions of the web browser Opera that are earlier than 11.60. Sorry! But that is a pretty old version of Opera, from Dec 2011. Please upgrade if you are using this browser. Thank you to Doriano for bringing this to my attention!]
Players at ranked Hearts tables now have a 2-minute grace period to return to their table if they get disconnected, causing them to leave the table (note that this does not apply if you click the "leave table" link - if you do this, you will be warned of the penalty, and it does apply). If you've ever been frustrated because you were kicked from a ranked Hearts table due to an internet disruption, I hope this helps. Note that the remaining players at the table are free to call on a bot to replace you during the 2-minute grace period. However, as soon as you return to the site, you will replace that bot, provided it is within 2 minutes of your leaving.
At all games, it has sometimes been a problem that a player would hit the backspace button, intending to erase a character in their chat, but it got interpreted as telling the browser to "go back" to the previous page. It would get you kicked from your table unless you returned to the site very quickly! With today's update, the backspace button is ignored unless it's used within a text input field. I hope this problem is solved, now.
Double / Redouble is described at Pagat as a popular variation of the game, and I've had several requests to add it. It works like this: the opponents of the team that declared trump have a chance to say "double" after trump is chosen. Then if the declarers do not make their bid, they will lose 2 game points instead of 1. If they do make their bid, they will win 2!
The declarers can respond with "redouble". If they do not make their bid, they will lose 4 game points. If they do make their bid, they win 4!
It only takes one player on a team to declare "double" or "redouble" - either player can do it.
The Double / Redouble Option is turned on by default. If you start a table using the default options, then Double / Redouble applies. If you do not want to play with this option, you will need to set the radio button for "Allow Double-Redouble" to "No" in your Options settings.
Double Redouble option for Twenty-Nine card game
Tables which use this new option are designated with "drt" (it stands for "Double Redouble Twenty-Nine") in the list of tables. Tables with the Seventh Card option are shown designated with "sct".) In the screenshot of the list of tables below, the Twenty-Nine table has both of these options applied, and a single Guest is sitting at it:
Table having Seventh Card and Double Redouble options applied
A number of players have requested that they be given the ability to completely block chats. Maybe they find them distracting, or just don't type fast enough to chat effectively. They just want to play cards, that's all.
That's fine with me, and I hope that they are not being given a hard time if they don't chat... it's everyone's right to remain silent, isn't it, after all?!
Now, these players can easily ignore chats by checking the "Hide All Chats" checkbox in their Settings area. You find your Settings by clicking on your user name in the upper right corner. The new checkbox is encircled in green in the screenshot below:
use "Hide All Chats" to block chats at World of Card Games
Other players tell me that there are one or two players whose chats annoy them. They'd prefer to avoid these players' chats. There's something for these players, too. There's now a little "volume" control beside each player other than yourself. If you want to block a single player's chats, click that volume control. It stops the player's chats from being shown.
If you want to undo this action, use the "Manage Chats" area shown under your Settings in the screenshot above.
use the "Hide Chats" icon to block an individual player's chats
Please keep in mind that just because you cannot see a player's chats does not mean that they are not chatting!
Kick Players
Finally, there's also a new feature that has been added specifically for players of the game Twenty-Nine [and other team games]. I've had a number of people tell me that they want to be able to kick players from a table. This is the internet and there are times when someone comes in who is extremely ill-behaved. Everyone at the table agrees that this is the case, and wants them out, but their only recourse is to dislike the player and leave. This is more painful in Twenty-Nine than in other games because Twenty-Nine is a very long-lived game. Imagine playing at a table for 1 hour, when a troll comes in and starts harassing you...
For these people, I've added back the "kick player" feature. If there are four human players at a table and three players have all disliked the same, single player, then that player is ejected.
If you wind up being ejected, you may very well know why. I expect that this may get used to eject slower players in addition to trolls. I'm sorry that this can happen, since I don't think slow players should be penalized. Personally, though, I'd rather not be sitting at a table where 3 other players don't like me. So I think it's fair enough to add this feature now.
This morning, World of Card Games was down for a short time to apply some bug fixes and new features.
Exclude Games in Progress option
Here's a brief summary:
There is now an additional option to "Exclude Games in Progress". If you only want to be seated at tables where the game has not yet started, choose this Option (click the Options button to get to your game options). Keep in mind, it may take you a bit longer to get started in this case.
The List of Tables now shows how long a game has been in
progress. If you really dislike being seated at a long-running table,
this is a good feature to use!
A few people reported to me that when joining a game in progress, sometimes their cards did not appear in front of them. This bug is now fixed. Please let me know if you see this happen again; it should not! A big thank you goes out especially to "no bots plz" and "davidly" - the two players who gave me enough information to reproduce this bug, so that I could squash it!
There is now an audio alert when a game that was paused is restarted.
You may use the "replace robots" link after a game has started, now. Previously it could only be used at the start of a game.
A number of players have written asking that some variations of the game "Twenty-Nine" (29) be allowed at World of Card Games. One popular request is the "Seventh Card" option. Today, this option is available, and it is turned on by default. (If you absolutely don't want to play with this option, you will have to edit your Options, and set "Allow Seventh Card" to "No").
Choosing the 7th card to decide the trump suit
The Seventh Card option gives you a new choice for choosing the trump suit. If you choose this option, the trump suit is taken from the 7th card that is dealt to you. The 7th card is placed to one side of your hand. It is not allowed to be used until you cannot follow suit (i.e., you cannot lead with this card). When you do play it, the trump suit is declared.
The 7th card is 8 of Clubs; the trump suit is Clubs
Trump is usually declared when a player cannot follow suit. However, if the high bidder chose the 7th card, then they do not have to declare trump when they are unable to follow suit. They also do not have to play their 7th card. Instead, they can discard an off-suit card, if it appears strategically wise to do so. This keeps the trump suit secret for longer than is usual in 29.
I hope you enjoy this new option! Please let me know if you see any bugs related to it. I'll be adding options for other variations when I have more time.
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.
Hearts is badly hit by quitters. Hearts games are not usually very lengthy, and I suspect this game is one where people quit because they want to avoid a loss.
Spades is also pretty badly affected by quitters. I've noticed that people will sometimes quit when their bid is set (especially if it's a nil bid), or when they get set because they couldn't cover their partner's nil bid. Maybe they fear their partner's ire? I've also noticed people quitting when they are close to losing, here.
Euchre is a fairly quick game - you are usually done in 10 minutes. Quitters are not as big a problem, here.
Twenty-Nine has a huge problem with quitting. However, it's perfectly understandable - it's a game that can take several hours, as the scores of each team ebb and flow. This is just the nature of the game. So far as I can tell, many people enjoy this game, despite the fact that you often just have to quit to get on with your life. It's interesting.
Gin Rummy has statistics that are similar to Euchre. I'm not sure why. It's a 2-player game so it does tend to take less time.
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 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.
A couple of players pointed out to me that there was a bug in the game Twenty-Nine: after the first hand of cards was finished, bids no longer showed up in each player's nameplate. This made it harder to choose a suit because people weren't sure who had bid what... especially if they came into a game in progress.
This is now fixed. I've also added a little bit of information about the previous bid history. If a player has made at least two bids, their previous bid will show in parentheses. See the screenshot below:
twenty-nine: the previous bid shows in parentheses
In this scenario, you are Guest #89. You previously bid 15, and most recently bid 18. Guest #77 previously bid 16 but their current bid is 19. The dealer has only bid once; their initial bid was 17. HAL 9000 has passed twice in a row.
I hope this change helps to make the game more fun! Please let me know if you spot any more problems.
There's a new game up at World of Card Games! It's called Twenty-Nine. It's a little bit like Euchre, a little bit like Spades. Give it a try and let me know what you think. I suggest running through the tutorial first, and maybe playing a few games with robots, before trying to play with other people. It can be confusing playing with new rules, especially since the cards do not have the "usual" ranking.
And do please report any bugs or problems, if you happen to notice them.
I'm starting work on adding another game very soon...
