Card Games

As previously stipulated, I've been playing cards since I was a kid. I firmly believe that everyone in the world should learn to play cards. It is a great way to exercise your brain and practice quick thinking, logic, creativity, deception, and many other skills that everyone uses in daily life. Studies show that people who use their brains frequently are less likely to get Alzheimers and have other problems later in life. It's also a great medium for social interaction. Below is a list of the games I play, and a brief description of the merits of each.

• Bridge - This is my main hobby, so obviously I'm partial to it. It's the second most popular card game in the world (to poker), but in my opinion it's a better game. Bridge is probably the most intellectual of the card games - it requires concentration and the luck factor is lower than in other trick-taking games. There is more information available to you if you know where to look, so you can make decisions more reliably than in other games. Check out my bridge page. If you're interested in learning to play, click here.
  
• Poker - I played poker a lot up until a year ago or so. I do enjoy it very much, and I've made a few thousand dollars playing casually online. I've played mostly either pot-limit omaha holdem or NL holdem sit'n'go tournaments. It's a very good game, and I miss playing it regularly. My biggest problem with it is that situations seem to recur much more frequently than in bridge, and so there's less variety.
  
• O'Hell - The first trick-taking card game I learned. It's a very entertaining game that can be playing with anywhere between 3 and 6 people. It's very much dominated by luck in the short term, but skill definitely shows in the long run. Very good as a social game - takes a suprising amount of time to learn the subtle aspects of the game despite how simple the rules are.
  
• Barbu - A combination of a number of card games that's scored as one game. It's a very hard game to play well - on the level of bridge and many of the people who are good are also good bridge players.
  
• Pinochle - It's an enjoyable game, but is limited by a rule which stipulates that you must beat cards that were played previously if possible (even if it means trumping, overtrumping, or even undertrumping your partner). It takes a while to get used to because it uses a different deck, a slightly different ordering of the cards, and you have to remember some card combinations that are worth points before the hand is played.
  
• Spades - Sort of a much less sophisticated form of bridge. One of my favorite games to play with players who all really know what they are doing, and with rules that allow you the most freedom of choice in the play. There are dozens of rule variations, many of which are dumb (in my opinion) and restrict your options, lessening the skill in the game. Everyone has their own set of rules they learned and think is the only way to play, which can make it frustrating to get a game together.
  
• Hearts - Most people have played on the computer, but very few actually know how to play it well (the computer is rather astonishingly bad) Can be a very good game if played on a high level, but it rarely is.
  
• Double Deck Cancellation Hearts - A variation my parents learned/made up in college. You use two decks and normal rules, except for one rule that states that a card played and matched cannot possibly win the trick. For example, if I lead the Q and someone else plays theirs too, some low spade could win the trick. It's great as a drinking game, because it's practically all luck, but can be hilarious fun. You need at least 7 people to realistically pull this off.
  
• Creights (modified crazy eights) - A game frequently played by the younger bridge players between bridge sessions. It's fairly mindless but can be a lot of fun. Mike Develin has a good synopsis of the rules here
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