Comment by cbfrench | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cbfrench | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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.

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.

My wife and I have had some fun games of German whist

Or you can try minibridge, it at least has official rules.

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.

I played bass in Canasta Renaissance. Toured the Midwest a couple times in the 80s.

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