[HN Gopher] Teach your Kids Bridge, not Poker
___________________________________________________________________
Teach your Kids Bridge, not Poker
Author : pclmulqdq
Score : 183 points
Date : 2022-05-21 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (specbranch.com)
| plank wrote:
| As someone who has played international checkers (the 10x10
| board), chess, go and bridge (although only chess and bridge in a
| club) I can concur. Bridge has the analytical dimension (at least
| with duplicate bridge), and compared to e.g. Klaverjassen or
| Belotte, the rules are very simple. (There is some complexity in
| the bidding part of bridge, but bidding can be postponed in the
| initial stages when learning the game)
|
| Just as the rules for international checkers are easier then the
| rules of chess, it is much more difficult to play very well.
| (While in e.g. chess you have much usage of heuristics like a
| rook is better then a knight, these simple heuristics do not work
| as well in international checkers).
|
| As bridge also had the psychological dimension (trying to trick
| your opponent by faking a finesse), I agree it teaches life
| lessons that can help you further down the road.
|
| (Furthermore: while chess is often a game of two - the classical
| variant is two players playing one game in the evening on the
| chess club, hardly talking at all - bridge is a more social game.
| Personal bonus for me: chess means either success of failure,
| while with bridge you can play e.g. 28 games in one evening, and
| go away with those 3 beautiful hands you played while forgetting
| the 5 times you blundered).
|
| The only game I find more elegant is Go, but I find the time
| necessary to play a single game to long (and in the Western world
| there are not that many simple to find opponents).
| tasuki wrote:
| > The only game I find more elegant is Go, but I find the time
| necessary to play a single game to long
|
| We have various board sizes! A 9x9 is quick, while still being
| interesting enough even to strong players.
|
| > (and in the Western world there are not that many simple to
| find opponents)
|
| Come on, you are on the internet ;)
|
| As for online play, OGS [0] is where the Westerners hang out,
| and GoQuest [1] is where the quick hassle-free 9x9 online play
| is: with 3 minutes per player, a game takes around 5 minutes.
|
| Also, at least in Europe, most major and not so major cities
| have some semblance of a go club or a semi-regular meetup.
|
| [0]: https://online-go.com/
|
| [1]:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fm.wars.goques...
| jessenichols wrote:
| Teach your kids whatever they're interested in, not X utility
| otikik wrote:
| My kid learned Super Mario Maker 2 on his own and he doesn't know
| how to read yet.
|
| He'll be fine.
|
| You can stop telling me what to teach him now.
| c0balt wrote:
| Post referred to in the article (you might want to read it
| yourself before reading this post): Teach your kids poker, not
| chess https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31435034
| jdmoreira wrote:
| When I read the poker article I too thought about bridge as a
| better alternative. I've never been deep into bridge even though
| I dabbled but I honestly believe that Magic The Gathering is the
| to the present what Bridge was to the past
| jdmoreira wrote:
| also the author main criticism about magic the gathering is
| around variance. Well... variance is good! It makes the game
| more interesting and welcoming to new players. Better players
| don't need to win 100%. Yes, even Finkel can lose a game of
| magic and that's good I think.
| pbmango wrote:
| I think most of Bridge's barrier to entry is perception. Before I
| learned the basics and started playing with friends and family I
| had the understanding it was extremely complex, on the order of
| playing a new instrument. This turned out to not be the case and
| anyone with a basic grasp of cards, probability, and betting can
| figure it out.
|
| There is also the social perception that is a game older people
| play, specifically older women. Without fail when I suggest a
| game or someone to learn it they reference "Its what my grandma
| plays". This is driven more by just how popular cards used to be,
| bridge one of the most popular. Something on the order of 3 of 4
| were in a regular card playing group mid century I remember
| reading. As that population retained the habit the average age of
| bridge player is now in their 70s whereas it used to be much
| lower.
| gweinberg wrote:
| Imperfect information games always have an element of chance, or
| "luck" if you prefer, because there is no important difference
| between rolling a die and guessing. It's not rare at all to have
| two ways of playing a hand which, based on the information
| available, are equally likely to make your bid but one works and
| the other doesn't.
| sdeep27 wrote:
| Author of original article (teach your kids poker, not chess)
| here - funny, it was seeing this rebuttal on the front page that
| made me realize there was a thread on mine! (linked in other
| comment here or in the article)
|
| One critique of this article is that bridge is most definitely a
| "luck" game as this article classifies it - any card game is
| nondeterministic, or stochastic. Also this author's use of
| symmetric and asymmetric is very different then my use.
|
| If you read my article to its conclusion, I believe both chess
| and poker (and bridge) offer tremendous value and encourage kids
| to play whatever - the main is that the nature of these lessons
| are tremendously different.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I wrote this rebuttal. Nice to meet you! Your definition of
| asymmetry focused on asymmetry of outcomes, which I believe is
| worth considering, but not the usual definition of "asymmetric"
| when talking about games.
|
| I also did attempt to define the luck/skill axis in a way that
| is non-intuitive, but I believe correct when talking about
| games in a technical sense: luck games have information hidden
| from all players, while skill games do not. In that sense,
| bridge is not a luck game. It is an unfair game because you can
| get screwed by how the cards are placed around the table, but
| the unfairness tends to even out as you play more hands.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Luck tends to even out in all games that involve luck if you
| play long enough. Why is it different in bridge than in
| poker? Luck will even out in both.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| It's not that different, if you can play enough rounds.
| Bridge and poker both give you that chance over a day.
| Magic the gathering, not so much.
|
| However, the luck element (by the human way of thinking
| about luck, not my definition) is much smaller for
| duplicate bridge than for poker. You can get legitimately
| screwed by finding the right contract and going down due to
| unusual opposing hands, but so will most of the rest of the
| field bidding your cards. _Only_ unskilled players will get
| a good result on that kind of hand, and they will give you
| back that advantage later. I guess you could say that the
| correlation between skill and score is negative on a few
| hands.
|
| A pro player on a cold streak will usually lose a few bucks
| in a cash game against new players, but a professional
| bridge player will beat the new players, guaranteed, even
| with the new players making "happy accidents."
| klyrs wrote:
| Teach your kids brainfuck, not BASIC
| Hayvok wrote:
| This reminded me of an article in WSJ a few years ago that
| "Bridge is the ultimate war game".
|
| > Great bridge players are great liars--as are brilliant military
| leaders and diplomats and politicians.
|
| > No board game can replicate the conditions of the battlefield
| or the maneuvers of geostrategy, for one simple reason: All of
| the pieces are visible on the table.
|
| The linked article talks about these ideas in more depth and
| compares bridge to other games like poker, chess, and go.
|
| Makes me want to give it a go, for sure.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/bridgenot-chessis-the-ultimate-...
| brobinson wrote:
| > No board game can replicate the conditions of the battlefield
| or the maneuvers of geostrategy, for one simple reason: All of
| the pieces are visible on the table.
|
| Uh, Kriegsspiel chess?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegspiel_(chess)
|
| Maybe a combination of Chess960 + Kriegsspiel would be even
| better...
| amelius wrote:
| And how about:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratego
| bombcar wrote:
| It's not true that all board war games are perfect knowledge -
| things like Napoleon at Marengo have army markers that face the
| player so the other player doesn't know what the strength is
| (could even be a blank as a feint).
|
| Various other war games implement different forms of fog of war
| that can be quite strategic.
|
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15839/bonaparte-marengo
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| I suggest teaching your children whichever game will enable them
| to think for themselves.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Unless you want to introduce gambling to your children, this
| fact alone disqualifies poker.
|
| Why wouldn't I? Gambling teaches math, probability, detecting
| deception, the sunk cost fallacy, sticking to a budget, dealing
| with disappointment, and if you win, generosity of sharing your
| win.
|
| Maybe I'm biased because growing up Jewish we learn gambling at a
| very young age (playing dreidel) but we're also using blackjack
| and poker with our kids to teach them all the things I said
| above.
| winnipeg wrote:
| We (the kids in our neighborhood) learned gambling at a young
| age. For some, this was associated with compulsive behaviors,
| criminal misconduct via mafia-associated illicit gambling
| rackets, and further organized criminal activities.
|
| Gambling is a vice. Where there is a vice, other vices exist.
|
| I agree with your comment primarily but suspect that the
| influence on life outcome of learning gambling at a young age
| is environmentally and culturally dependent.
| golemiprague wrote:
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| There is a big benefit to learning about how to gamble well as
| a kid, but that is offset (in my opinion) by learning that it
| is good to gamble. It needs to be drilled into a good gambler's
| head that they should take good bets as long as their bankroll
| supports it but avoid bad bets. Most people who learn to play
| poker don't learn that.
|
| Incidentally, I believe that it is also good to teach teens
| about fine wines and spirits (to expand their palates) and how
| to drink in moderation and avoid hangovers (to help them in
| social situations). Many people who start drinking early also
| don't learn those lessons.
|
| Kids also pick up a lot from context, so if you teach your
| child to gamble using a dreidel on a holiday, it is a very
| different thing than teaching them to gamble with online poker
| (for example). It's very easy to learn the wrong lessons from
| games like poker and blackjack.
| mpettitt wrote:
| I have a 5yo and play a wide range of games with her. She has
| various "learning games" from Orchard Toys. She has some junior
| versions of various mainstream games (e.g. Scrabble, Dobble) and
| junior versions of more gamer type games (e.g. Ticket to Ride:
| First Journey, Catan Junior, Concept Kids). She's got some (ok, a
| lot) of Pokemon cards, including the Battle Academy sets which
| give 3 roughly balanced decks for about PS20, which give a decent
| introduction to the game. She can also play various other gamer
| type games - Zooloreto, full size Ticket to Ride, Thunderbirds
| co-op game, Kingdomino, etc.
|
| Also have a 3yo who is awesome at Dragonimo and likes joining in
| with things like Uno.
|
| I'm pretty sure the key thing is to teach kids that games are
| supposed to be fun and that there are a lot of options. There are
| games on my shelves which I don't plan to introduce them to for a
| while yet, but mostly because they are a bit too dry (hard to get
| kids interested in some themes) or require a bit too much in the
| way of reading without your opponent helping, but I'm sure
| they'll get introduced eventually!
| contingencies wrote:
| Check out _Sleeping Queens_ , which looks like it's all chance
| but is really excellent for sneaking in some simple integer
| maths practice. _Virus!_ is also a great card game for younger
| kids. When you get there, outsourcing (adult) scrabble scoring
| to your kid is also a sneaky way to get some extra maths in.
| c22 wrote:
| Teach your kids to make up their own games.
| alfor wrote:
| I just started with my kids on the recommendation in a book.
|
| In it they describe bridge as a game where people learn to put
| their attention toward other people instead of being toward self.
|
| He claimed that most of our psychological problems are caused by
| a self centered attitude as we are made to live and interact in a
| group setting not alone.
|
| We turned off Netflix and gaming and started to play bridge and
| play tunes together. So far, good changes.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Kids who learn polo probably have better outcomes than these.
| Also recommend golf at the country club. Bet these show better
| outcomes than all these nerd games.
| jvvw wrote:
| Two player games do have an advantage as you only need two of
| you. Finding other children to play with is a huge advantage too
| and lots of schools have chess clubs, so I understand it's
| popularity. It's hard if you are much better at a game than your
| children. Magic The Gathering works well because they can
| genuinely beat us, but you need a keen player as a parent really.
|
| There is also the age issue. I think Go is a more interesting
| game than chess but the scoring is a little hard to teach and it
| hasn't captured my children's interest as much as chess.
| Backgammon is interesting - been wondering about teaching it to
| my children as a counterpoint to chess. Not sure if mine (9 and
| 11) are quite ready for all the bidding conventions in bridge but
| working up to it with whist. Poker is very educational I think -
| I learned lots from playing it - but not really sure whether it
| would work as a family game.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Two player games do have an advantage as you only need two of
| you.
|
| While not to encourage being antisocial, chess also has very
| good computer programs to play against--and even provide
| instruction. I assume there are good consumer accessible Go
| programs these days too although I haven't looked for a while.
| It's nice to have as a backup and, in general, I find computer
| card games are less capable or have annoying blind spots that
| you can suss out after a while. For example, I've found that
| computer Hearts programs are pretty vulnerable to shooting the
| moon against them.
|
| Backgammon could be good--although I never really got into it.
| I suppose Checkers is another option but, of course, relatively
| simple.
|
| Although I'm even worse at Go than I am at Chess, I agree with
| you. Chess probably has at least an easier learning curve to
| get to some minimal level of competence.
| xhevahir wrote:
| It's much better to play go against human competitors; there
| are several servers where you can do that.
|
| The best place for tips is probably the Sensei's Library
| website.
| valec wrote:
| >While not to encourage being antisocial, chess also has very
| good computer programs to play against
|
| even better, with the likes of Lichess and Chess.com there is
| near instant placement into matches with a similarly skilled
| human
| bsder wrote:
| In addition, most _bridge_ is boring as hell.
|
| You study all these cool bidding problems. You work out how to
| drop the offside 10 when held against. Then, you sit down at a
| table with other people ...
|
| And get a single semi-interesting hand the entire night.
|
| Mostly everything is perfectly obvious bidding and perfectly
| obvious play. "Trick, Trick, claim" -- "Trick, Trick, Trick,
| Trick, claim" -- etc.
|
| However, to be fair, "boring" is probably _a good thing_ if
| bridge is regarded as a _social_ activity. I find that I really
| can 't be "social" playing chess. The "a single mistake can
| sink you" aspect of chess makes it too mentally demanding.
| Chris_Newton wrote:
| _In addition, most bridge is boring as hell._
|
| I'm sorry that's been your experience.
|
| If you find that most of your games are routine and entirely
| obvious, you might like to make sure you're shuffling the
| cards properly before each deal. A classic problem
| particularly with social bridge is that you have a deck or
| two and someone just does a casual overhand shuffle or three
| between deals. That doesn't mix the cards up anything like
| enough and tends to result in lots more bland, even deals
| than there ought to be with truly random shuffling.
|
| I don't know anything about your standard or the level of
| people you play with, but it's also possible that your group
| tend to be very conservative bidders. If few of your auctions
| are competitive and usually the partnership with the stronger
| hands gets a free ride to a reasonable but cautious contract,
| it's inevitable that you won't face so many challenging
| situations in the card play stage because you'll be under
| less pressure and the other side will have less information
| to plan their defence. If this is happening, either side
| could probably get much better results by being more active
| during the auction and so creating more challenges for their
| opponents and opportunities for themselves during the play.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| I think the problem here is that rubber bridge is just very
| low intensity compared to most modern games.
|
| Of course there's a frisson when you correctly bid a slam
| or sacrifice to prevent your opponents from finding theirs.
| But most bridge players don't even know how to recognize a
| borderline slam, and they just bid a game and don't
| contest, leaving things pretty low stakes.
|
| It's so unfortunate that it takes 8 to play duplicate, as
| duplicate is my favorite of all games.
|
| But I understand why people don't get excited about bridge
| for 4.
| tasuki wrote:
| > I think Go is a more interesting game than chess but the
| scoring is a little hard to teach
|
| It's not just the scoring part, the goal of the game is
| somewhat elusive. Surround more than the opponent, how do I
| even get started? Chess, despite having way more complicated
| rules, has an immediately obvious goal: capture the king.
| cesaref wrote:
| Definitely give backgammon a try with them. It's very easy to
| pick up the basics, I reckon any 9 and 11 year old will pick it
| up in an hour, if you avoid the doubling die and just play
| games out.
|
| A few evenings of this and before you know it they'll be
| playing tavla with a lovely turkish tea on the side and will be
| learning some farsi for common rolls. What's not to like?
| pdm55 wrote:
| Bridge can be played online. I practise my skills there against
| the robots. It takes constant practise to interpret the bidding
| and play, aiming to work out the cards that the other players
| hold.
|
| The most unusual aspect of bridge is that after the bidding
| finishes, one player (the dummy) puts their cards face up on the
| table. I don't know of any other card games where this happens.
|
| Chess works really well online. Your rating is quickly adjusted
| so that you are playing players of similar ability. Bridge has a
| longer learning curve. You need to go to lessons to learn a
| bidding system. Though, I do remember one night at a club where a
| young guy brought his classmate along to play. Their whole system
| was, "If I bid a suit, support my suit".
|
| Some (younger) bridge players stream their online games on
| Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Bridge/videos/all
| weatherlight wrote:
| Go, teach your kids Go.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > it is very unusual to have imperfect information but no luck in
| a game
|
| Rock, paper, scissors. Stratego. Many, many others.
|
| But the author seems to miss that bridge is not one of those
| games. It has the dealing of cards. That's luck!
|
| Luck, randomness, is a type of imperfect information. What is
| that enemy Stratego piece, really? Is the cat in the box alive?
| Will the roulette wheel come up red? All imperfect information.
| There are just different mechanics a game designer can use to
| achieve imperfect information. So we may as well argue about
| whether dice games are better than card games or games with
| spinners. Moot.
|
| Here's an idea: teach your kids a favorite game. It's probably a
| favorite because it's challenging in some way. Great! Just make
| sure you all have fun.
| ghaff wrote:
| I really liked Stratego growing up. Quite a few of the 3M
| Bookshelf games were a lot of fun too--in many cases they were
| pretty much restyled versions of very traditional games.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Duplicate bridge removes the luck: you play the hand you are
| given at a table, but you are scored against other pairs who
| have the same cards as you, not against the people you played
| with. It essentially removes the luck from the game. Rubber
| bridge and grandma's version of the game have a ton of luck,
| but duplicate has almost none.
|
| Stratego is also a great game, and I forgot about it!
|
| EDIT: If you want to play a 4-player "duplicate" bridge game,
| that is also possible by comparing to the par result, which is
| the best scoring contract that can be played for the hand.
| Someone wrote:
| It doesn't remove all luck. You may be dealt cards that suit
| your bidding strategy better than that of your opponent or
| vice versa.
|
| Given the number of rounds played, that's unlikely, though,
| unless one bidding strategy is truly better than the other.
| bombcar wrote:
| Even rubber bridge is usually long enough to even out the
| luck - where the more skilled partnership will win the rubber
| most of the time.
|
| But the luck makes it fun even for the less skilled - as
| everyone can help them bid a slam if they get one.
|
| Four-player duplicate needs a fifth person to arrange the
| deck/hands.
| dmurray wrote:
| > Four-player duplicate needs a fifth person to arrange the
| deck/hands
|
| I'm not sure what this means. The only time I played, we
| kept our played cards in front of us, face down, and passed
| them to the other table after the hand. You need eight
| players, not four, but I don't think you need non-playing
| helpers.
| JoshCole wrote:
| Luck versus skill as a concept is the idea that you can
| discriminate between agents ability to win. You can state
| that one agent is better than another agent at a game with
| greater confidence bounds on the basis of a quantification of
| their skill. Perfect information versus imperfect information
| is the concept of whether you are playing a game over
| information sets and strategy space versus the states and
| actions of perfect information.
|
| Conflating these two ideas is going to lead people to talking
| past each other. They aren't the same concepts.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Yeah, we'd always either play duplicate hands to compare
| performance or else at least rotate through all three sets of
| partners so that each individual player had a score that was
| at least somewhat less reliant on luck and also lets you pick
| one winner at a table of four people with partners.
|
| My grandma taught all of us to play once we hit about 8, just
| reading the books on strategies is eye opening.
|
| You'll probably appreciate that one of her favorite quotes
| was "a peek is worth two finesses". She knew it was literal
| for sure, but figuring out why was very educational when I
| was 9. I also still remember the one time she miscounted
| trump.
|
| And we'd get made fun of if we bid _wrong_ , not if we didn't
| get the most points. They have newspaper puzzles asking "what
| do you bid next" in bridge because the answer is actually
| identifiable most of the time. As long as we bid competently,
| whether we actually won the hand was besides the point. It
| was if we made mistakes that we had the information to avoid
| making that was seen as bad playing.
|
| So maybe you won't get as many points, but the other people
| at the table definitely know the difference between luck and
| mistakes.
| SamBam wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Probability comes into play here: understanding
| distributions of cards and possible hands that opponents can
| have will allow you to figure out how to play for the maximum
| number of tricks.
|
| This means that even in Duplicate Bridge there is an element
| of luck.
|
| If I know that the King of Spades is _most likely_ in the
| hand of my opponent on my left, and I decide to act on that
| uncertain belief, we 've entered the territory of luck. If I
| was right, I'll have a big advantage over the other
| "duplicate" teams I'm competing against. If I was wrong, I'll
| be scored poorly.
| medler wrote:
| The element of luck is canceled out. If you get a great
| hand, it doesn't matter, because your opponent at the other
| table has the exact same hand.
|
| We could quibble about whether this means there's zero luck
| or merely a very small amount of luck involved, but in
| either case there is at most a small amount of luck.
| SamBam wrote:
| You didn't read my comment. I didn't say anything about
| getting a great hand. I understand what Duplicate Bridge
| is.
|
| I was saying that sometimes bridge players make decisions
| based on luck/probability. They could be quite certain a
| specific card is in a specific hand, and different
| players might decide to go with their hunch or not. If
| they are _lucky_ they will be rewarded for their hunch,
| if they are _unlucky_ they will be punished for it.
|
| Let's put it even more clearly: suppose we had two
| players on separate tables, both have the same hand, and
| both have had the exact same series of events leading to
| their third trick (same bids, same cards played), _and_
| both players have accurately worked out that the King of
| Spades is _most likely_ in the hand of the opponent to
| their right.
|
| One player goes with his gut and plays as if the King is
| definitely there, the other plays cautiously because he's
| not positive.
|
| Which player will end up with more points at the end?
|
| You can't know from the information given, because it
| depends on whether the first player was _lucky_ or
| _unlucky_.
|
| (Yes, like poker the luck will eventually even out. I'm
| just saying it's wrong to say they're is no luck, when
| people can make decisions based on incomplete
| information.)
| ackfoobar wrote:
| Over more deals that element of luck averages out. But of
| course this can also be said for poker.
|
| To be pedantic we should then say duplicate bridge
| reduces a great deal, but not remove, the element of
| luck. But that's a mouthful.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| What if you are only good at playing great hands and your
| opponent is good at playing average hands and bad at
| playing great ones. On average your opponent would be a
| better player, since average hands are more common. But,
| by luck, you are in a situation where your skill counts
| and not your opponent's.
| Chris_Newton wrote:
| The thing with bridge is that, like poker, the game itself
| is unbiased. There is often an element of probability, but
| stronger players will tend to play lines that are more
| likely to succeed, so over time they have a better average
| performance.
|
| It's also true in both games that as you improve you
| develop a deeper understanding to the point where you're
| almost playing a different game. Where a beginner might be
| happy to play 100% lines, an improving player will consider
| the cards they can see but also what _might_ be happening
| with the others and they will play lines that get better
| results on average by looking at the probabilities. A good
| player will see a bigger picture still, not only
| considering _a priori_ possibilities for the hidden cards
| but also drawing inferences from what every other player
| does or doesn't do and what each player would have known at
| the time.
|
| That means a lot of "lucky" decisions that good players
| make actually had a much higher probability of success than
| an intermediate player's calculations would suggest. At
| this level, both games also have an element of not just
| playing your own cards well but also painting a credible
| but incorrect picture for one or more opponents to trick
| them into doing something that helps you. That certainly
| does need an excellent understanding of the probabilities,
| but the final result is mostly due to the skill of the
| players in setting the trap and then either avoiding or
| falling into it.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I'd rather go with StarCraft or Quake. Never liked cards.
|
| Multiplayer games require all sorts of skills to be successful
| shadowofneptune wrote:
| Quake has the same issue as Bridge where if you try to get into
| it now, all the other players have been playing for decades and
| will steamroll you.
| backtoyoujim wrote:
| Teach your kids dressage not polo.
| ddingus wrote:
| No way. Teach them both!
|
| No limit hold 'em skills are high value in my view. Having
| learned the game from my wife, who we found out has real talent,
| has had a positive impact on how I view and price risks and
| value.
|
| Currently, I have idea how to play bridge. I can learn with the
| young ones.
| paulcole wrote:
| Teach your kids anything but Hacker News.
| pstuart wrote:
| I'll take your comment at face value (ignoring the dis on a
| site that is engaging enough for you to participate ;-)
|
| HN is a treasure trove of interesting ideas and adventures. Of
| course it's not perfect but nothing is.
|
| In the peanut gallery of this particular article I've learned
| about several games worth exploring to play with my kids.
| cbfrench wrote:
| I was a weird kid and taught myself the rules to a ton of card
| games as a kid, including bridge. (Except I was an only child who
| lived out in the country and never really had anyone to play
| with. Again, weird kid.) The problem is that knowing the rules of
| bridge don't really translate into understanding the intricacies
| of the bidding strategy, and I've never found anyone else who
| wanted to learn it (my wife has, understandably, never been
| particularly receptive to picking it up). And it's not like there
| are other millennial couples out there eager to learn bridge,
| lol.
|
| I'm trying to make the canasta renaissance happen. It works well
| as a two- or four-hand game, and it's social while also demanding
| some skill in the play. Bezique is another favorite.
| bombcar wrote:
| We had a pretty effective group of bridge players at college --
| and the bidding is certainly a decent obstacle.
|
| However, if you're just playing for fun and at least one person
| knows the basics of a decent bidding set (American Standard is
| usually fine) you can just ask openly - thinks like "do you
| have more than 13 points? A major suit with at least five
| points and five cards?"
|
| And if bridge is a bridge to far you can play whisk or bid
| whisk as an intro.
| bmacho wrote:
| Or you can try minibridge, it at least has official rules.
| cbfrench wrote:
| I might give it another shot. There's a bridge club in the
| area that might be worth looking into.
|
| And whist is great. I inflicted that on my friends at Scout
| camp one summer, and they ended up actually enjoying it. I
| need to refresh myself on bid whist.
| shadowofneptune wrote:
| I've wanted to get into Sheepshead (like Bridge, but from
| Milwaukee), but the issue is the same as bridge where all the
| players who could teach me in the family are either dead or
| moved away from the area. Even my grandfather said the game was
| hard to get into when he was young: he could have a good time
| with it with people his age but his extended family was full of
| sharks. I'd imagine we see poker being so popular since it is
| has enough rules to be interesting but simple enough to learn
| in an afternoon.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > People will play poker differently when they are playing for
| large amounts of money than when they are playing for small
| amounts of money: they are a lot more conservative when a lot of
| cash is on the line
|
| This is false. If your playing style changes with stakes, you
| shouldn't be playing poker. And you want to play at a table where
| people do that, because it's exploitable.
|
| The only bet sizing that matters in cash games is relative to the
| big blind. Your playstyle shouldn't change if the big blind is $1
| or $1000.
|
| Game theory doesn't care about the absolute size of the bets, and
| you should always aim to play game theory optimal game. If game
| theory says the most optimal play is to make a 35 big blind
| bluff, you make the 35 big blind bluff whether it's $35 or $35000
| (unless you know something about the particular opponent). And if
| you can't afford to lose the money when the stakes are higher,
| you shouldn't be at that table.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Ok Phil Helmuth... "you're playing the game wrong!"
| nimih wrote:
| > Your playstyle shouldn't change if the big blind is $1 or
| $1000.
|
| _Your_ playstyle might not change, but it certainly seems
| plausible that the average players ' does. Anecdotally, even a
| $5 vs $20 buy-in seems to meaningfully change the character of
| house games I've hosted/attended (at least, when everyone
| attending is a broke college student).
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| It's well known that people shouldn't change playing style when
| playing at high stakes, but that they do (this is a classic
| Monty Hall style thing).
|
| The really interesting game theoretic thing is that it goes
| further than just being relative to big blinds (if you have an
| infinite bankroll): it's all relative to the size of the pot.
| When you should be making or calling a bet is determined only
| by the relative size of the bet and the pot, not the blinds.
| The blinds just provide a natural escalation of pot size from
| 0.
|
| Bankroll management comes into play with larger bets (at any
| stakes), and naturally affects pot odds decisions: if you have
| a $5,000 bankroll and you are facing a half-pot $1,000 bet, you
| should call that bet with a much tighter range than if you had
| a $20,000 bankroll. You can only afford to take so many coin
| flips. It is actually rational to be more conservative as bet
| sizes get closer to your bankroll size.
|
| This means that people should be playing stakes relative to the
| size of their bankroll, which they don't always do (the average
| $1/$2 player doesn't usually have 1/5th the bankroll of the
| average $5/$10 player in my experience, it's closer to 1/3rd).
|
| However, when the pot size is $0, people naturally treat the
| pot very differently than when it is even $1, since there are
| no bankroll considerations at all.
| cortesoft wrote:
| You are missing an important element of the game theory, and
| the missing part is what makes the stakes matter.
|
| You can't just make decisions based on expected value of the
| bet, because when you run out of money, you can't play anymore.
| A bet that has a positive expected value, but has a good chance
| of knocking you out of the game, is not worth playing if your
| baseline expected value per hand is positive. Running out of
| money (either your actual money, or the amount of your stack in
| a tournament) means guy can't make any more bets, so you have
| to factor that risk in.
|
| This is why it is different without real money. Does the game
| end when your bankroll runs out, or are you playing such that
| you can refill your stack? That will change the game theory.
| [deleted]
| cletus wrote:
| It's a shame that Bridge's popularity is waning because it is a
| very interesting and skilful game. It suffers from having a
| relatively high barrier to entry. A lot of comments here are from
| people who clearly have never played the game.
|
| In bidding there are 48 calls you can make (1-7 of each suit plus
| notrumps, X ie double, XX ie redouble and pass). The bids (1-7 of
| each suit and no trump) are ordered meaning once someone bids 2D
| you have to bid 2H or higher so you've lost the 1 bids and 2C).
| The two teams are interleaved and are trying to convey
| information to your partner but your opponents have access to
| that information too.
|
| It's kind of amazing how much information you can convey within
| this simple system. It's not even just about what bids were made
| but what bids _weren 't_ made. Bidding is a deep, deep topic.
|
| Additionally you can lie to your partner (within limits) and in
| competition play there are rules around what you can and can't
| do. This can confuse your opponents but will also confuse your
| partner (if it doesn't it's often ruled as "illegal
| information").
|
| After all this and the opening lead the dummy hand is placed on
| the table. Every player can see it. The defending team has the
| auction to inform the defense. So it's not just a simple trick-
| taking game. The auction and the play are inextricably
| intertwined.
|
| The defenders can convey information to each other through which
| cards they play. The declarer can see this too but has less
| context on the meaning.
|
| In both the auction and the play Bayesian reasoning comes into
| play. What _didn 't_ happen? How does that affect the probability
| space?
|
| Building partnerships takes time although experienced players can
| sit down with a new player, agree on some fairly standard
| conventions (eg 2/1, upside down carding) and be at a reasonable
| point.
|
| But the high barrier to entry, fixed numbers of players and the
| reliance on partnerships make it a tough game to play casually.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| It sounds like if two players on a team have a lot of
| experience playing together they probably develop an intuition
| of each other, and I would guess this is viewed as an important
| part of the most successful teams. It also sounds like if those
| two players attempted to codify a communication pattern, like
| "I will play cards this way, which means this" it would be
| ruled as illegal? It sounds like a game of cards, and game of
| communication, and a game about pushing the rules and the
| moderators, like me and my partner need to learn to communicate
| illegal information, but we cannot do so in a way that is
| detectable, and if we're people of integrity, we wont make
| communicating illegal information our explicit goal, but our
| practice together is always helping us be a little better at
| it, but we maintain deniability and integrity because we never
| explicitly planned it.
|
| Am I way off here? I'm guessing all these subtleties make
| online play difficult as well?
| mercutio2 wrote:
| If your partner has revealed information to you, you are
| _required_ to alert your opponent to that fact.
|
| In practice having better communication is still a big
| advantage, but it's not because of an information asymmetry
| (for honest players).
| ddingus wrote:
| Pinochle has these characteristics, and team play definitely
| improves with understanding your team mate better.
|
| One time, for a bit of fun, my team mate and I were looking
| for a bit of an edge. 4 suits = 2 bits = two eyes open or
| closed, one combination for each suit.
|
| We triggered reading the eye lid states as particular points
| in the game were happening. A query was triggered by a shared
| set of words.
|
| The opposing players were quite adept and we had to take
| measures or we would be caught!
|
| We confessed it after a modest but fun string of great games
| and the opposition, who are good friends, thought it clever
| and pretty funny for us to end up wanting wins badly enough
| to develop the scheme!
| cletus wrote:
| Carding conventions like bidding conventions are public. Let
| me give you some examples.
|
| When defending a trump contract and you, as a defender, lead
| a side suit, what card you lead describes your holding. An
| example is you tend to lead top from an honor (AKQJ are
| honors) sequence. So if you have QJxx you'll tend to lead the
| Q. Doing so denies the K (as KQxx has a different lead). It
| may or may not deny the A depending on what you've agreed
| upon. So with AQJxx you might lead Q ow low depending on your
| convention.
|
| Likewise your partner's card tells you something. For one you
| need to know if they're carding count (how many of that suit
| they have) or attitude (whether they want you to continue
| that suit or shift). So upside down attitude means you
| respond with a low card if you like it (standard ir high as a
| positive signal but most consider that an inferior treatment
| as you may waste valuable high cards). The leader can infer
| the meaning of your signal based on their holding and what's
| in dummy. Like the leader might have 32 and partner plays the
| 4. Leader knows this is a positive signal. Declarer who
| cannot see your 32 might not know this.
|
| This is an example of imperfect information mentioned in the
| article.
|
| Declarer knows what conventions defenders are playing. Hidden
| understandings are illegal. You can lie to your partner but
| if, say, you discourage a lead and your partner continues it
| and that's the winning play then you may get penalized for
| that in competitive play.
| ghaff wrote:
| >But the high barrier to entry, fixed numbers of players and
| the reliance on partnerships make it a tough game to play
| casually.
|
| At various times, I've played a lot of different games. And
| Bridge always seemed like one that was more of a commitment
| than I felt like making at a given moment.
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| No love for Whist?
| jb3689 wrote:
| Teach your kid a bunch of games and let them pick for themselves
| spekcular wrote:
| I think the author makes some good points, and certainly I find
| this article more more compelling than the poker one. Trick-
| taking card games seem like a great choice for kids. However,
| when I looked into bridge specifically, the following things
| turned me off.
|
| 1) It requires a dedicated, long-term partner. If your partner
| isn't available, you can't play. "Pick up" bridge with strangers
| simply isn't feasible in the way that randomly matching teams on,
| e.g., an online FPS or tower defense games is.
|
| 2) The game is fundamentally broken by certain bidding
| strategies, which must be banned.
|
| 3) There's no way to prevent opponents from cheating by using
| out-of-game signals (e.g. timing of bids). This can even be done
| unintentionally. So fair play is always an open question.
|
| Perhaps someone who knows more can comment about whether I'm
| wrong?
| ackfoobar wrote:
| I like bridge. I want bridge to be more popular, but I don't
| think that will happen.
|
| To extend from your first point. Top level players have their
| dedicated partner, and their own bidding system where the
| information transmitted is much more refined. This is all very
| fascinating!
|
| But it also makes it unwatchable for anyone not dedicated to
| this art. Sometimes even the commentators don't know the
| meaning of a bid.
| VLM wrote:
| Bridge seems to be a game of "lets take all the good parts of
| Spades then overcomplicate it".
|
| Kids can definitely learn all the lessons mentioned by playing
| Spades and its much quicker to teach.
|
| Most of the fun in Spades is not being serious, which is easier
| if you're not playing for money. Long bizarre rambling
| hilarious discussions about how many tricks we can take vs how
| much BS the other team can throw down. If you play with super
| strict players whom think anything other than saying a number
| is "cheating" then Spades is incredibly boring. "Well I donno
| maybe with some luck I think I could possibly take three if I'm
| lucky how are you feeling?" "Oh they're saying they'll take 8,
| you know those two, they're always overbidding, how do you feel
| about taking 9."
|
| Imagine playing DnD but all you can do is roll dice, call out
| numbers, and not talk any shit at the table.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Where I was in high-school, bridge happened to be extremely
| popular (and also another Whist variant, some kind of Oh
| Hell).
|
| I can assure you that most of the bridge games from that
| high-school time were extremely funny and hilarious.
|
| So I do not believe that whether a game is boring or funny
| has much to do with the rules of the game, but more with what
| kind of players participate.
|
| Also, I do not believe that the rules of bridge are too
| complicated. When I was much younger, many simpler card games
| were entertaining, but by the time we were in high-school,
| most other card games, except bridge, seemed much too simple
| to provide any kind of intellectual satisfaction after a
| skillful win.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I am the author, and I have played bridge for a very long time:
|
| 1. Pick-up bridge is certainly possible, and you can walk into
| a club and find a partner. You have to be playing a "standard"
| bidding system with them, though. If you do this, expect to
| play a lot of Standard or 2/1 in America, ACOL in Britain, etc.
|
| 2. This is kind of true, except the strategies that are banned
| are mostly banned because people don't want to play against
| them. The ACBL is run by grandmas who want you to play bridge
| like a grandma, so they ban a lot of things. The world bridge
| federation is a lot more reasonable. The only truly game-
| breaking bidding systems were forcing-pass systems, and those
| are banned in order to preserve the diversity of the game (if
| not, everyone at a competitive level would have to use a
| forcing pass system).
|
| 3. I think this is correct, although cheaters do end up getting
| caught when their play deviates too much from "correct."
| Fantoni/Nunes ended up getting caught this way.
| bombcar wrote:
| Bridge anti-cheating is some of the most elaborate in the
| world: at the top level everything is sanitized to remove the
| possibility of information transfer.
|
| For local or friendly play it can be much more fun to openly
| discuss the hand as it's being played, especially if one pair
| is much better at bridge than the other.
| llIIllIIllIIl wrote:
| Teach your kids starcraft 2 wings of liberty specifically. What a
| bs.
| 4c3shi wrote:
| A lot of these comments seem to miss the point: author isn't
| suggesting you teach your kids any game in particular, it's just
| a reply to an article:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31435034.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| Teach your kids
| Group_B wrote:
| Teach your kids Blackjack, not Bridge
| glitchc wrote:
| Blackjack and Euchre are two of my favourites.
| ufo wrote:
| In first grade, we were taught how to count to 10 using a
| modified version of blackjack that added up to 10, instead of
| up to 21. Turns out that it is still fun enough for 6 year olds
| if you remove the gambling aspect.
| ghaff wrote:
| When I was visiting Las Vegas way too frequently about 5 years
| or so ago, I decided to memorize at least a simple version of
| what you should do with various hands. I think I played a bit
| one trip--lost a small amount of money. But decided I didn't
| really like it.
|
| I find it can be fun as a social thing but playing "right" is
| pretty much about memorizing a table.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Teach your Kids Many Different Games, Not Just One.
|
| Domain specific intelligence optimizes for particular games, but
| our kids will play lots of games all their lives, and they need
| to be able to play them reasonably well. And of course, I'm not
| really talking about games. I'm talking about situations with
| different rules.
|
| Sequential circuits are so much easier to imagine and discover
| when you start drawing them down as flows and transformations,
| inputs and outputs. If you thought that the only way to describe
| a circuit was as a simple Boolean expression, you'd have only
| been left with combinational circuits..
| sixo wrote:
| Getting especially good at one thing is very good for a person.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Specialization is for insects. A human being should be able
| to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a
| ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts,
| build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders,
| give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a
| new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty
| meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. --Robert Heinlein
|
| We shouldn't be hyper focused on becoming "especially good"
| at one thing but . Jack of all trades, master of none, makes
| you better able to see and apply relevant knowledge to
| different areas. It's good to know your own limits, but not
| good to to only focus on one area and ignore others.
| planetsprite wrote:
| The world economy and the mega-prosperity of the 20th
| century onwards depends solely on providing the means for
| individuals to become highly specialized in return for a
| livelihood comfortable in proportion to the utility of
| their specialization.
|
| Of course it's good always to learn new things, but
| expecting everyone to be able to "plan an invasion, butcher
| a hog.. program a computer" is a rhetorical judgement on
| the potential of humans that ignores the realities of the
| modern world.
| celticninja wrote:
| It's not that specialisation is bad, more that you can be
| specialised in an area but that doesn't mean you should
| not have a wider range of skills, that you are not expert
| at but you can do it without fucking things up entirely.
| planetsprite wrote:
| Fair point, but I have a counterpoint. The dunning
| krueger effect means most "widely specialized" people
| assume their competence is leagues higher than it
| actually is in fields they have marginal understanding
| of. This leads to people overestimating their abilities
| and fucking things up, when they really should rely on
| 0.1% experts. This of course isn't true for simple things
| like cooking, knot tying and email writing, but the more
| technical a task, the greater the threat of overestimated
| competence vs known incompetence.
| kelnos wrote:
| It can be, but there's also a good amount of risk and
| opportunity cost that comes with that.
|
| Maybe the thing you get especially good at turns out to be
| useless or low-paying (for a profession) or of limited fun,
| social potential, or replay value (for a game).
|
| I would much rather become a generalist and learn a bunch of
| things, and then do some limited, "shallow specialization"
| when the need and opportunity arises. But I think you're
| still more likely on average to be successful/happy with a
| more generalist/breadth approach.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Well it's not zero sum. You can specialize in one thing but
| still dabble in others
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Expertise has its place, but it is not everything.
|
| Also expertise is not the only component to career success,
| and everything isn't about career success either.
| [deleted]
| mgaunard wrote:
| I'd rather teach them a game that's actually good instead, like
| Tarot or Belote (which are both similar to Bridge, and not
| associated with 70+ people)
| aloisdg wrote:
| 5-players Tarot is awesome.
| mgaunard wrote:
| 4 players is the official one and is considered more of a
| challenge.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I hear Euchre and Spades are also good.
| Avshalom wrote:
| There was thread about spades a while back
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28358391
| cbfrench wrote:
| Euchre is delightful. I now live in the Midwest, where
| seemingly everyone knows how to play, so it's always easy to
| pull out a deck of cards when people come over. It moves fast
| and involves just enough strategy to maintain interest while
| also being social.
|
| Edit: Also, if you're into spades, I'd also recommend Rook.
| It has many of the same mechanics, but the bidding is
| somewhat more nuanced. (Although I'd suggest getting a used
| Rook deck because the modern ones are very cheaply made.)
| akira2501 wrote:
| Double Deck Euchre is a fantastic modification to the game
| too, definitely increases the range of strategies you can
| employ. I miss living in the Midwest.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| One time, when I interned at a trading firm, I visited the
| Chicago office, and I was pleasantly surprised that they
| had Euchre games every Friday. The rules are really easy to
| learn and there isn't as much strategic depth as bridge,
| but it's a great social bidding-and-trick-taking game.
| Since everyone knows how to play, it's a lot of fun.
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| stahlf wrote:
| I would also suggest Preferans which belongs to the same family
| of games thematically - trick taking, contract bidding. Three
| players, dynamic alliances, instead of predetermined pairings
| like in bridge. Multiple game modes, including the "passing
| game" which happens when nobody wants to bid and results in a
| round where players are penilized for taking tricks. Some of
| the interesting bidding options include "no trump" and "misere"
| (not certain of spelling) where player contracts to avoid
| taking any tricks.
| crux wrote:
| Teach your kids Tarock, not Bridge.
|
| Ok, that phrasing is mostly just to keep the pattern going. But I
| do want to bring to light the fact that there are actually a
| larger class of games of the same sort as Bridge - imperfect
| information, high skill, with a body of strategy and discussion -
| than most Americans are aware of.
|
| I think it's worth mentioning these for two reasons:
|
| 1. They're really wonderful games! And they have deep cultural
| roots, which can be added delight for those of us who enjoy
| engaging with other cultures.
|
| 2. Bridge players can be kind of... dicks? That is, it's
| unfortunate but true that the culture of Bridge can often be
| quite rigid and unfriendly. Especially to newcomers. As mentioned
| elsewhere, a surprising amount of Bridge has to do with the
| conventions encoded in the bidding, and if you don't know those
| conventions you might feel rather lost, and your partner might
| get very annoyed at you.
|
| Luckily, there are other games in the world that are the 'Bridge'
| of their own countries of origin - deep, strategic, rewarding
| years of play and study - that the average English speaker has
| never heard of.
|
| I won't go into too much detail but some highlights are:
|
| - Preferans, a straight-trick-taking game for three from Russia;
|
| - Skat, a point-trick-taking game from Germany;
|
| - Tarocchino, a point trick taking game played with a 62 card
| tarot deck from Bologna;
|
| - Koenigrufen, a point trick game played with a 54 card tarot
| deck from Austria;
|
| - Danish tarok, a point trick game played with a 78 card deck;
|
| - Vira, a straight trick taking game from Sweden;
|
| - a half dozen incredibly deep and challenging games from Hungary
| alone. Something in the water over there.
|
| In point of fact, Bridge is quite interesting, especially if
| you're interested in the meta game of communicating through
| bidding conventions. I am not; there are other games out there
| that have really interesting features, lots of strategy, and a
| history dating back hundreds of years. Check them out!
|
| Because I'm an annoying evangelist for this sort of thing, I'll
| make sure my email is in my profile in case you'd like to know
| more.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| In Switzerland a lot of people play Jass[0]. It's almost like a
| national sport. I can't play it, but it feels like I'm part of
| a minority.
|
| Jass games are even being broadcasted on national TV, it really
| is a huge part of our culture.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jass
| yread wrote:
| Czechs play a lot of Marias
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari%C3%A1%C5%A1 it's in some
| ways similar to bridge specifically the Licitovany marias
| variant:
|
| There is ordered bidding that often conveys information,
| further information can be conveyed by playing style (if you
| hold an advantagous card in betl you use the cards in
| descending order, otherwise you use descending order) and lots
| of counting and memorization is involved. Both for the current
| game as for the next ones - cards are not shuffled only cut -
| so skillful players can reconstruct approximately who has what
| cards based on the previous game.
|
| On the other hand it's most often played in a loud pub with a
| beer in hand so lots of mistakes are made.
|
| It's also referenced frequently in literature esp. from 1st
| half of 20th century (Hasek, Polacek)
| jean- wrote:
| So happy to see tarot games mentioned on HN, I'm a big fan of
| their strategic depth and centuries-old cultural background.
|
| Something a lot of people don't realise is that when tarot
| cards were invented, their intended purpose was to be a game.
| The whole divination/cartomancy aspect was made up much more
| recently, mostly to amuse French aristocrats.
|
| An excellent resource for people interested in learning more
| about this very old tradition is the following YouTube channel:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiCFfp_ZY4g
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of Hanabi. It's a cooperative game with
| imperfect information, both because you only know other
| players' hands (not your own) and because you don't know what
| order the rest of the cards will come in. But with good
| strategy and good communication (within the bounds of the
| game's restricted communication) it's possible to win just
| about every game.
| simlan wrote:
| Adding Doppelkopf a 48 cards combined half decks game. Played
| by 4. Teams 2 on 2 determined throughout the game. The game was
| influenced by Skat and Schafkopf and borrows from them. It is
| however very casual usually and the rule variations depend on
| the region you are in. Anyway to sum up trick an bid games are
| really fun!
|
| Fyi for the US there is also binocle that has some traction and
| at least to my experience has been largely forgotten in the
| originating areas of Germany.
| grimgrin wrote:
| I'm a big fan of climbing games as they require a consideration
| to the order you play your hand unlike most other games. Doesn't
| hurt that your hands are large, a dozen or more cards
|
| I think of the best 2 player variant, Haggis. And Tichu
| (partnered). And Dou dizhu (2v1)
|
| Also referred to as shedding games
| jb3689 wrote:
| Tichu is practically bridge plus poker. Win-win
| HideousKojima wrote:
| In my family we grew up playing a lot of cribbage. Makes it easy
| to spot number combinations that add up to 15, not sure what
| other practical skills it might give.
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| (Former) kid who was actually taught bridge by my parents (at a
| very young age) here. I believe I found it very boring and never
| played and forgot the rules. The teaching of bridge to me was
| somewhat of a Christmas present to my grandfather, who deeply
| loved the game, and my parents enjoyed teaching me random skills
| (for example, I could name most state capitals before I knew what
| a state capital was).
|
| When my brother was old enough, my family played pinochle
| instead. Simpler ruleset, MUCH easier bidding, games could go
| much faster (since no help from parents was needed, for example).
| It was always "kids vs parents" so there would be no fights
| between us about who won more games. You need two standard decks
| of cards to make a pinochle deck but whatever, just buy two
| standard decks of cards and throw out 2-8. Pinochle is a great
| game for families of 4 with young kids who want to play cards
| together, I would definitely do that again.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I played Bridge almost entirely with my family members. Our
| level of expertise was "We read the instructions for Bridge off
| a pamphlet somewhere." We really enjoyed playing it. Once or
| twice we had the chance to play Bridge with someone who Played
| Bridge and it was much less fun. Suddenly, our bids meant
| stuff, communicated something, and/or were wrong somehow.
|
| I'm sure if I played a lot of Bridge it would be better to play
| it the mainstream way. But, if it is a game you only play a bit
| with family sometimes - I think it's more fun to just play how
| you feel it should be played.
| butwhywhyoh wrote:
| Teach your kids not to write follow-up articles to things found
| on Hacker News to gain internet points
| 4c3shi wrote:
| Interesting take, maybe I'll write about that.
| mcdonje wrote:
| I prefer go to chess.Each piece is the same. There is no
| hierarchy. The goal isn't to topple a king. The goal is to get
| more territory. It's easier to teach a child the rules, but it is
| more difficult to master because there are more possibilities of
| how the game can play out. Concepts involve influence, pacing,
| feinting, planning, etc.
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