What is your favourite card game?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. For the last week or so, I’ve been on holiday, and one thing my family and I have been doing on our evenings is playing cards. Now I’ll admit I’m not exactly a card aficionado, but I have to say that I’ve been thoroughly enjoying our games! With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; what is your favourite card game?

For me, I have to admit it’s currently Contract Wist. I’ll admit I’ve currently mainly stuck to the Wist genre, and have not delved into any of the games with fancier moves or anything that involves playing for money, but I definitely find Contract Wist more interesting than Knockout Wist, personally!

For anyone not familiar with the rules of Contract Wist; instead of trying to win everything like in Knockout Wist, you declare beforehand how many tricks you think you will win and try to win that exact number of tricks (no more, no less). If you win that exact number of tricks, you “come up” and gain an additional 10 points that can be added on top of the number of tricks you won.

The thing I like about it is that unlike Knockout, you can work with any hand you’re dealt and can still do really well. Regardless of whether you have a hand full of trumps and picture cards or a hand full of 2s and 3s in a non-trump suit, you can still come up and win provided you make the right call! I love the strategy involved in it; you have to properly think about whether your cards are likely to win, and it’s almost as fun to try and intentionally lose as it is to win! I would caveat, though, by saying that I don’t like blind calling nearly as much; calling blind does introduce a unique element of carnage to the game, but it does lack the strategy involved in non-blind calling.

But I’d be really interested to know; what is your favourite card game?

 

[rob666]

Played a lot of cards with my mum in later years, mainly whist and rummy, (collecting groups of three and four).

Our favourite game was an old student one, we could never call it the real name, we called it "find the lady" (Queen of Spades) in mums company.
The correct name..."Hunt The ...." (it rhymes) was used by all the student players in the early eighties, dangerous and nasty game where the other players could attack the current leading player...a vicious community group game.

Fantastic game of hate and aggression, "Deal me in, I'm only playing to crap on X and Y..."
And then do all you could to stop a winning streak by a single player, a bit like group boxing.
And we always played for money...minor stakes...but it made it all the more fun to spend two hours bullying a whole pound out of a mate!

Those were the days, when the game could end with a forceful slap from the winner (or bad loser!)..all part of the rules.