World of Card Games

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.

I've created a Facebook page for World of Card Games. Not really sure how useful it will be... but here it is!
https://www.facebook.com/WorldOfCardGames

For those who are into Twitter, I've also got an account there - https://twitter.com/WorldOfCardGamz

Last night, I attended my second live, in-person card game event. It's been over a month since my last event, so it's about time.

These games last much longer than an online game. I arrived at 7, left at 9:30, and only had time for one game of Spades. There's no timer at the table, and people are talking and eating... That makes a difference.

My partner and I managed to win the game! It was touch-and-go for a while. I got set when bidding nil; I had a decent hand for a nil bid, but had too many medium-value cards in the clubs suit. Our luck turned later in the game. We were able to set our opponents, and then my partner managed to pull off a nil bid when she was holding the King of Spades! A desperate ploy! Fortunately, I was holding the Ace, and was able to cover her. This nil put us ahead, and undoubtedly won us the game.

These events are a lot of fun... I highly recommend that you get out and play some card games, if you can. Meetup is a great resource for finding card game groups. If you don't have the time, or can't get out, head on over to World of Card Games for the next best thing.

Hi everyone! This is a public service announcement :)

Please let me know about bugs or issues. I love to get bug reports! (This may seem strange - but how else will I know what's wrong?)

I do know that there are some problems with the site, in particular the fact that it "freezes" sometimes. I've been trying to get a handle on that, without success so far. But if it happens to you, it's useful if you notify me - it will give me an idea how often it occurs. And if you can give me any details about the computer or device that you use to play with, all the better.

If you've reported an issue, and it hasn't been fixed yet - my apologies! I have to prioritize bug fixes, and can't always fix something very quickly.

If you report something more than once, don't worry! I don't consider this nagging. It's nice to know that people care enough about World of Card Games to really want the bug fixed.

You can contact me at marya@worldofcardgames.com

A few months ago, I started collecting statistics on the table options that people are using at World of Card Games. I thought it might be interesting to some people, so I'll share the results here.

In all of the games, the most popular table options are the default ones: robots allowed, do not require registered players, no private table setting. That may mean people don't realize that they can change them, or perhaps they don't want to be bothered. Here's the breakdown by game:

• Hearts: 60% of tables have the default options.
• Spades: 53% "
• Euchre: 56% "
• Go Fish: 94% "

The second most popular option is to use a private table with no table name (table name is set to "none") - this setting is used by players who want to play with robots only. Here's the breakdown for that:

• Hearts: 29% of tables are private, for playing with robots only.
• Spades: 19% "
• Euchre: 22% "

The third most popular option is to forbid robots. Some people really dislike the robot players (I admit, they need improvement!). Here are the statistics for that category:

• Hearts: 7% of tables forbid robots.
• Spades: 11% "
• Euchre: 17% "

Well there you go! Very few people have the "Registered Only" option set. That's interesting. If you set this option, only registered users will be allowed into your table. This may be useful if you want to recognize who you're playing with. Guest numbers change, so if you played with Guest #10 yesterday, they may be labelled as Guest #251 today.

Last night, I met up with some folks for a few card games. This was the first time I ever played Spades or Hearts offline!

It turned out to be a lot of fun. It was a little disconcerting to play with real cards at first, but I found that my "training" from playing at World of Card Games had really paid off. After a bumpy start, I was soon using the same strategies that I've developed online.

dealing a round of Spades

I noticed a few crucial differences between card games on the website and those in real life.

For one, games take longer in meatspace! The dealer has to shuffle the deck and deal out cards, and players have to sort the cards in their hands. The score has to be totted up after each hand. All of that takes longer when the computer is not doing it for you.

In addition, games are more confusing and disorganized in real life! For example, in a game of Spades at World of Card Games, the computer tells you who deals. In real life, it's up to the players to keep track. After many hands of cards have been played, people tend to forget who dealt last. Was it you... or me... or...?? And in Hearts, the computer tells you whether it's time to pass cards left, right, or across, or whether it's a no-passing round. Not so in real life! I realized I've been relying on the computer to do these things, and I found I lost track easily.

Anyway... here's a brief summary of the games last night.

We started with a few hands of 3-player Hearts, since not everyone had arrived and we didn't have a full set of four players. Once we got four players, we switched to a game of Spades. I enjoy Hearts, but I prefer Spades, so I was happy to switch.

My partner and I failed to make our bid, and got set in the very first round - we would have to dig our way out of a negative score. Soon thereafter, we ran into some luck when one of our opponents (I'll call him West) bid nil, and their partner (East) failed to cover. After we set them, we learned that East had not had to cover a nil-bidder before, and didn't realize what she was doing by leading with a low card - so we got an unfair handicap there. At this point, our opponents were in a negative-score hole!

We managed to set our opponents 2 or 3 times, burying them. They never recovered, and we won!

Afterwards, we played another game of 3-player Hearts. By some kind of miracle, I won this game! (I almost never win at Hearts, online.) I snapped a shot of the scores as evidence, see below. For anyone who does not play Hearts - it's a game of trick avoidance, and the low score wins. Notice my opponents tied for second place, which is a bit unusual!


I'm looking forward to more games in real life. But it's nice to be able to sit down and play a game online when I've got the time - no commuting necessary!

How about you - do you play cards in "real life" or only online? If you've never played with others in real life - I encourage you to find a group to play with. It adds a whole new dimension of fun to it!