Farenheit 1997*

Wil Wheaton (or as he will always be to geeks like me, Ensign Wesley Crusher) had a piece up today about tabletop games, and invited his readers to submit their favorite "analog" or "tabletop" games. I put down a comment about Rummy, Bluff, and Uno. Gotta admit, in a raucous and boisterously fun group, Bluff is a heck of a lot of fun for a card game.

Anyway, thinking about card games made me think back to my senti sem (last semester on campus, so named as one gets sentimental about times spent in BITS), when my wing had a nightly ritual of playing a game we'd dubbed "Temperature". Don't me why. Just roll with it. I thought I'd share the rules of the game with my readers so the more jobless & group-oriented might have a try at it.

1. All cards have face value. Picture cards (i.e: J/ Q/ K) are 10 points each. Aces are 1 point each. Jokers are 0 points. The winner of a hand is the first person to successfully declare the lowest hand (i.e.: the hand whose card values is the lowest)

2. Depending on the number of players, multiple decks of card need to be used, including the Jokers. A judgment call has to be made about how many cards are dealt to each player. So from experience: 5 players need 1 deck, have 5 cards dealt to each player, with the remaining (29) cards in the middle; 6-7 players will need 2 decks, have 7 cards dealt to each player, with remaining cards in the middle.

3. With the remaining deck in the middle: open the top card and slide it under the deck. All other cards of that value are the additional Jokers, with 0 points value. Open the next top card and lie it face up next to the deck. This is the active card.

4. The person to the left of the dealer starts the game.

5. As stated above, the object of the game is to lower the total value of cards in hand. This can be done in several ways:

• Pick up the top card of the deck in the middle, and discard one card from the hand (in that order). The discarded card can be the one you've just picked up.
• Pick up the active card (top card lying face open in the middle), and discard one card from your hand (in that order). However, the discarded card cannot be the one you just picked up.
• If picking up the active or top card created pairs, triplets, etc. of a type, then all cards of that type, regardless of suit, can be discarded together on the next turn. So for example, if I have a Queen of Diamonds, and the active card is Queen of Hearts, I can pick up the Q-of-H, and drop the Q-of-H and the Q-of-D.

6. If the middle deck is exhausted, pick up the pile of open cards, turn them over, shuffle them, and reuse them as the new middle deck.

7. When a player thinks he has the lowest total, he shows his hand and declares the total. If he does have the lowest total (which can be non-zero BTW), then the player receives 0 points, and all others receive points equal to the value of their hands. If the player has incorrectly declared, he receives a 50 point penalty, the real "winner" receives 0 points, and all other players receive points equal to the value of their hands.

8. As players cross a pre-designated threshold, for example 300 points, they are eliminated from the game. The last man standing is the winner.

Tips & Tricks:

• Take risks early on by forming pairs and triplets to drop on the next turn. This means I've dropped my hand value by a large number, but more importantly, I've decreased the number of cards. This is quite an important strategy that pays off in middle and end-game: if I have 5 cards in hand, my maximum value is 50 points, but if I've lost one card, I can only have 40 points. Towards the end, when most players have just one or two cards, it becomes quite a guessing game if a one-card hand can beat a two-card hand.
• Beware picking up high value cards to form pairs or triplets in the end-game. Other players can see how many cards you have and its no great feat to deduce the value of your hand based on the card you've picked up. This may lead another player to declare before you've had a chance to discard your cards.
• Remember - its not just picture Jokers that have a value of 0. An additional Joker was drawn at the beginning of the game. If you're lucky, its a picture card (J/ Q/ K) that went from 10 point to 0 ... if you're unlucky, the additional Joker is an Ace, which was only 1 point to begin with.

It sounds a bit long-winded I know, but once you get the hang of it, speed up the game play, and let the good times roll!

* It's the temperature at which your brain explodes.

Comments

[the lady]

oooohhh lets play bluff with the boston gang this weekend..seriously..wud be soo fun:-) and this game u've described (in a really "long-winded" way) sounds a lot like laughing game - our family favorite...let the games begin:-)

[Vodka]

When you mention card games from Campus, the only one that comes to mind is Bridge.

Dunno about temperature. I think you might have mentioned it back then, but don't think I've ever played it.

But Bridge, oh dear lord. The sheer amount of time we wasted playing Bridge is incalculable. I recently tried to play a game against on my old ZX Spectrum (YES, I still have antique computers :) and got soundly thrashed.

[Vodka]

btw, that captcha engine you have is irritating. The image is not always legible, so I need 3-4 attempts before I get through.

You need to check out the captcha I use. It asks a mental arithmetic question. Like what's 2+3.

I suddenly feel like I'm actually that MSc Honours in Math that my degree certificate declares me to be :) LOL :)