I'm going to move away from video games again for this post and move into card games. Cards are just fun things to have around at almost all times. Years back when The Kid and I went to Disneyland, I brought a deck of cards for us to play 5 Card Draw when we were standing in line. We even got a couple of people to play with us while in line for the Matterhorn. This week I wanted to cover two card games, one's a single player and the other is traditionally a two player game although rules exist to have more people. I don't remember exactly when it was that I found out that I play both Pyramid and War differently than pretty much the entire world, but it was one of those moments when I began to wonder why everyone else was playing it wrong. Let's begin then with Pyramid.
Pyramid
I learned to play Pyramid from my Mom when I was don't know how old. It was a simple enough concept. You deal cards out in a pyramid shape then add two cards up to 13 and remove them. Ace = 1, King = 13, Queen = 12 and so on down. You go through the deck once, after that, if you don't have all the cards cleared, the game's over. It wasn't until I got my Mom a CDRom compilation of card games that I found out we had been playing the game wrong for over a decade. And our "wrong" way of playing was so much better than the official rules.
The only variation we played with was that all the cards are faced down, except the bottom row and any cards that you uncover and are able to flip over. I really don't understand why you would have the cards face up? From my perspective, it would be like having the cards faced up when playing Solitaire. I feel like having the cards face up makes the game too easy.
How I was taught how to play:
Versus how the "real" rules say how to play:
Anyway, I guess I just suggest try playing it both ways and see which way you prefer.
WAR
I don't remember when or where I learned to play War. My first memory was from my neighbors across the street from my parent's house when I was in 1st or 2nd grade, so it was probably some time around then. The basic rules, I play the same as everyone else: highest card wins; two of the same card, start a war. It's the rules/procedure for the war though that seem to differ from everyone else I've ever played. And, the version I've been told my numerous people, is even different than the "official" rules that are up on Wikipedia.
In traditional rules, when two players deal the same card, a war happens. For this war, each person deals three cards face down, chooses one and that determines the war. I've also seen it played that after you deal three cards face down, the forth card dealt is face up and that determines the outcome of the war.
The rules/procedure that I've played with, and still insist on playing with are as follows:
Pyramid
I learned to play Pyramid from my Mom when I was don't know how old. It was a simple enough concept. You deal cards out in a pyramid shape then add two cards up to 13 and remove them. Ace = 1, King = 13, Queen = 12 and so on down. You go through the deck once, after that, if you don't have all the cards cleared, the game's over. It wasn't until I got my Mom a CDRom compilation of card games that I found out we had been playing the game wrong for over a decade. And our "wrong" way of playing was so much better than the official rules.
The only variation we played with was that all the cards are faced down, except the bottom row and any cards that you uncover and are able to flip over. I really don't understand why you would have the cards face up? From my perspective, it would be like having the cards faced up when playing Solitaire. I feel like having the cards face up makes the game too easy.
How I was taught how to play:
 |
| Ignore the fact that I'm missing one row of cards. |
Versus how the "real" rules say how to play:
 |
| Playing this way feels like cheating. |
Anyway, I guess I just suggest try playing it both ways and see which way you prefer.
WAR
I don't remember when or where I learned to play War. My first memory was from my neighbors across the street from my parent's house when I was in 1st or 2nd grade, so it was probably some time around then. The basic rules, I play the same as everyone else: highest card wins; two of the same card, start a war. It's the rules/procedure for the war though that seem to differ from everyone else I've ever played. And, the version I've been told my numerous people, is even different than the "official" rules that are up on Wikipedia.
In traditional rules, when two players deal the same card, a war happens. For this war, each person deals three cards face down, chooses one and that determines the war. I've also seen it played that after you deal three cards face down, the forth card dealt is face up and that determines the outcome of the war.
The rules/procedure that I've played with, and still insist on playing with are as follows:
- Three cards are dealt face down
- Each player flips over one card at a time
- Two out of three battles wins the war
- Any war to occur during these battles negates the previous battle count.
I just find this way of playing War and Pyramid to be more interesting. It could also be that phenomenon when you prefer something the way you learned it, or the version of a song you heard first. I'm sure that's a real phenomenon but I can't think of what it's called or find it on the internet, but I know it's real because my brain told me so.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The Voices Are Subletting Again.
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