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        riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> New Card Game: Paranoia Maid
        
(Message started by: malchar on Aug 16^th, 2008, 9:16pm)

Title: New Card Game: Paranoia Maid
Post by malchar on Aug 16^th, 2008, 9:16pm

Paranoia Maid

I was playing card games with my family, and out of a lack of anything better to play, I suggested Old Maid. I didn't really remember the rules, but after tweaking it for a while, we invented a much better game. During the process of making this new game, I remembered that Old Maid is basically all luck, while this new game has a very interesting strategy that I don't completely understand yet. Here is the game:

Rules:
Start with a regular deck of 52 cards. Remove one queen from the deck and set it aside. It wont be used at all. Deal out the 51 remaining cards. Play starts with the person to the dealer's left.

On a player's turn, they pick an opponent. The chosen opponent gives them a card from their hand. Then, the player who's turn it is may play any pairs of exactly 2 cards of the same face value from their hand face down on the table.

If at any time a player has no cards in their hand, they are out of the game and are safe. When there are two or less people left in the game, anyone who has a queen in their hand loses the game. The loses get a point and play continues with a new shuffle and dealer rotation.

Questions:
Anyone who has played Old Maid will recognize how similar this is, but has anyone heard of a game that is similar to this? That is, have I just invented a game that already exists?

Next, there are a lot of subtle variations that people suggested that could greatly change the strategy of the game. Here are the variables that we came up with:
Piles played in front of players must be face up. (We started with this rule, but got rid of it because it was more interesting to not know how many queens were left).

Players must play piles whenever they are able to. (We started with this rule but eliminated it because it is reasonably impossible to enforce and allows for more strategy anyway).

Players may play all piles that they are dealt before the game starts. (I'm not sure about whether or not this should be a rule. We always played with it, but I can think of arguments for and against it).

If anyone plays cards or board games regularly, give this game a try and let me know what you think. It really isn't like Old Maid at all. After playing only a few games, I've realized that the strategy is very immense. I'm also wondering if anyone notices any potential problems such as unbeatable strategies or positions in the game where a win is guaranteed. The only time that this occurred in our testing was when the game went down to three people out of the five that we started with. Anyway, thanks in advance.

Title: Re: New Card Game: Paranoia Maid
Post by malchar on Aug 26^th, 2008, 4:34pm

The first time that I played, I quickly realized a possible strategy. In general, I assume that if anyone has a queen, they will pass it as soon as possible. Therefore, taking a card from the same person as the player who went before you did is usually safe. Theoretically, this would cause everyone to take from this person, except for the person who goes after them. This is because the mutual "target" has to take from someone other than themselves. If they take from someone with a queen, then they become "infected" and starting with the player after them, everyone must pick a new "target".

A possibly better strategy is to "team up" with one other person and always trade between yourselves only. It works as long as they don't start with a queen or as long as they don't end up running out of cards before you do. The only real problem is that eventually one may have to knowingly take from the player with a queen in order to "free up" the other cards in that player's hand.