As I have mentioned previously I am a huge gamer. There is a
continuum of games where the influence of luck versus skill trades off with
each other. At the far end are games such as Chess and Go where other than who
goes first players start out as perfect equals and there is only the difference
in player skill to determine the winner. These games feature a wealth of
choices for players to make, they are very unrestricted in strategy that must
be used and there is an incredible variation in how the games end up; there are
more variations a game of Go can be played than the number of atoms in the
universe. Opposite to those games are simple board games such as monopoly where
the outcome of a game is usually determined by who rolled the dice better or
spun a spinner to more advantageous numbers. In these games players may make
one or two decisions but usually it is evident which choice is the better one
and the strategy in these games is simplistic enough for children to understand.
For some people to fun of a game is all about the luck involved and so they
gravitate towards game such as monopoly, life and war. One of my favorite past
times is playing card games. Card games take on a different role when compare
to other types of games. Card games generally are a contest against other
players, a battle of the wits where the only thing determine the winner is a
small amount of luck and mostly skill; they are close to the chess/go end of
things but luck takes enough of a role in things to keep it interesting.
The most popular card game would probably be poker, a game
where players make bets against each other on how “good” their hand is compared
to the other players. All players start at the odds, same as with chess, they
all play with the same deck and as such have the same chance as any other
player of drawing a specific card. Where the strategy comes in is with betting.
Players acquire information about the cards in their opponent’s hands based on
body language and the way other players are betting. This is the aspect where
strategy comes in, betting in such a way as to mislead your opponents and get
them to make the wrong movements.
The main card games I play are less well known yet still
incredibly popular. Magic the Gathering is one of my favorites, a trading card
game with a fantasy theme where players utilize a resource called mana that is
produced by specific cards in their deck to cast spells, summon creatures, and
attempt to lower their opponents health to zero in order to win the game. In
this game there is a large card pool players are restricted to build their
decks out of but each player will have different cards in their deck. This adds
an element of strategy that poker does not have, the element of deck making. Some
decks will be inherently better than others or have a strategy that is a
counter to a different deck’s strategy. Unfortunately this adds an aspect of “pay
to play” to the game as the cards are not free and generally the more powerful
a card is the more expensive it will be. Magic and Poker cross over greatly;
many famous Magic players go on to play poker as there is more money in that
game than in the professional Magic scene. Players in Magic gain information
through body language as well as the other cards the player has played so far.
Often cards that can be used synergistically together will appear in the same
deck so if a player knows what cards work well together in the pool of
available cards then they will have an advantage in that they can predict the
other cards in a player’s deck.
Unlike poker Magic has a lot of direct interaction with
other players. Cards will directly influence the opponent’s game plan, such as
cards that stop opponents from casting spells or destroying each other’s
creatures. This aspect is the aspect that makes Magic more enjoyable for me
than poker, there is something very satisfying about unraveling an opponent’s
game plan and watching the plans they were making crumble.
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