M
Mike Church
Enthusiast
Silver Level
My name is Mike Church and in 2003 I invented the card game, Ambition. While Ambition's not totally obscure (the game is played independently of me and my personal associates, and has an estimated 2000 players worldwide, mostly in North America and Japan) this is probably the first time you have heard of Ambition.
Since fall 2003, I have been adapting the rules and modifying the game, researching and analyzing the game's emergent properties and strategies, and striving to write the best damn card game I can. My most recent changes will be posted on Usenet within a couple of days, and I'm hoping to circulate an updated PDF rules document by the end of January (once these damn grad school Apps are done).
This is just an intro. post to get the ball rolling. Do any of you have any questions about Ambition, or any comments?
For those who don't know about it yet, Ambition is a trick-taking game with a lot of strategic depth. The goal isn't unambiguously to win (positive trick games like Bridge) or to lose (evasion games like Hearts)-- it's consistently to take moderate-to-strong totals while never taking the most (unless you can take a lot, or take none). Because of its unusual multiplicity of objectives and strategic biodiversity, it's a very deep game that invites very intricate analyses. Another plus is that hand-luck plays a surprisingly small role in round outcomes-- I believe much less than in any trick game popular today. Even contrivedly terrible hands, with skilled players, can be played to positive average outcomes.
To get started on the strategic aspects of Ambition, there's an essay on the Usenet (which I'll post on the Ambition blog when it goes up) from 4 months ago, 9/11/2004. It discusses how to read one's hand for strengths and weaknesses, which shines a bit of light onto the tricky aspects of passing strategy, optimal ruffing, etc.
The Ambition blog, at http://ambition-game.blogspot.com/ , will be going online shortly.
Since fall 2003, I have been adapting the rules and modifying the game, researching and analyzing the game's emergent properties and strategies, and striving to write the best damn card game I can. My most recent changes will be posted on Usenet within a couple of days, and I'm hoping to circulate an updated PDF rules document by the end of January (once these damn grad school Apps are done).
This is just an intro. post to get the ball rolling. Do any of you have any questions about Ambition, or any comments?
For those who don't know about it yet, Ambition is a trick-taking game with a lot of strategic depth. The goal isn't unambiguously to win (positive trick games like Bridge) or to lose (evasion games like Hearts)-- it's consistently to take moderate-to-strong totals while never taking the most (unless you can take a lot, or take none). Because of its unusual multiplicity of objectives and strategic biodiversity, it's a very deep game that invites very intricate analyses. Another plus is that hand-luck plays a surprisingly small role in round outcomes-- I believe much less than in any trick game popular today. Even contrivedly terrible hands, with skilled players, can be played to positive average outcomes.
To get started on the strategic aspects of Ambition, there's an essay on the Usenet (which I'll post on the Ambition blog when it goes up) from 4 months ago, 9/11/2004. It discusses how to read one's hand for strengths and weaknesses, which shines a bit of light onto the tricky aspects of passing strategy, optimal ruffing, etc.
The Ambition blog, at http://ambition-game.blogspot.com/ , will be going online shortly.