Hearts (the card game)
Excession
doubt be accused of needing a life. C'est la vie. It might be
entertaining for someone.
I purchased a book for my partner for Christmas -- Stephen King's
'Hearts in Atlantis'. The book itself is quite ok, and has an entire
novella based upon some college students who get hooked on playing
Hearts for money, and the consequences of their addiction.
I played Hearts at work during my lunchtime. We played just about
every day (perhaps a dozen workdays in a dozen years were missed),
with about ten regulars and 'stand in' players.
Hearts, for those of you not au fait with the game, is also known as
'Rickety Kate', 'Black Bitch', or 'Hunt the cunt'. It's mostly a four
player game, and there are near infinite variants. The classic
Hearts is as follows -- each of the four players is dealt 13 cards,
then they look at their hand and choose 3 cards to pass on. The pass
on changes direction each hand, and every fourth hand is a 'hold'
hand, where you get stuck with the shit that you're dealt.
The object of the game is to AVOID taking tricks that have points on
them. The first person to get to 100 points ends the game, and the
person with the lowest score is deemed to be the winner. All of the
hearts are worth 1 point each. The Queen of Spades (QS) is worth 13
points all by herself. Dumping the QS of people is the ultimate aim
of the game in each hand. There are rules on what you can play on the
first hand, and rules about when you can lead hearts, but generally
that's the entire game. Oh, and if you get ALL the points, you've
'shot the moon' and everyone ELSE gets 26 points, and you get 0. Very
tasty.
We played a wild variant -- the pass would always be to the left, you
could pass anything, you could lead anything, and there were rotating
trump suits! Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades, No Trumps.
Additionally the Ace of Spades was worth 7 points, and the King of
Spades was worth 10 points, QS was 15 points, for a total of 45 points
per hand. Instead of playing up to a certain score, we would play 15
hands, and the person with the lowest score at the end of 15 hands was
deemed the winner. It took just on 55 minutes to play an entire 15
hands. We called it Bastard Hearts, and it was a very difficult game
to play compared to the borejoysy standard variant.
After some increasing incidences of personal animosity, the game
became too tendentious to be classed as 'fun' anymore after over a
dozen years of playing, and in my last year of work, we simply
stopped.
Anyhow, reading Mr King's book re-ignited my desire to play Hearts,
but since I'm currently on a self-funded year off from work (after
being made redundant last June), I have nobody to play with.
Fast forward to Christmas, and I jet over to South Australia to spend
the festive season with my family, and lo, I find my father playing
Hearts on The Zone (www.zone.com). I'd shown him this area back in
1997, and he was a hopeless hearts player. I could moon with impunity
as he passed me his high hearts without cover, or worse still, didn't
pass me any hearts. Life was good.
But since then had joined Case's Ladder (www.casesladder.com), and
became a Low Man heart's player (Morgo4), where the person with the
lowest score is the 'target', and the other three players work as a
kind of team to give the QS to 'lowman'. It's a much more structured
game than the free-for-all version I was used to, and it's not
infrequent to see games end with all players in the 89-99 points
position when someone goes out of the back door (i.e. gets 100 points
or more).
So I watched a few hands, and thought that I could play. The ladder is
free, the Zone is free, and there are always victims, er, players
ready to play. I joined the ladder, and waded in. Bang Crash "You
are an idiot!", I fucked up the low-man idea comprehensively, wildly
ditching the QS, and screwing the High Man instead of the target.
Many Ladder players put me on their shit-list, and I got a very quick
come-uppance from players who were totally focussed on Getting Low.
I changed my style, and watched 'good' players, ranked in the top 20
on the ladder, and eventually Got A Clue. It is a much different game
from the Bastard Hearts I was so familiar with. I mean, cooperation
with other players was just unheard of in our games at work. Here it
was fully expected, people will pass you three low spades as 'cover'
for your (hopefully held) QS. You never hit high man with points if
it is avoidable, and you spread the points around. It's a more
thoughtful intense experience than the general hearts game, and once
you're used to it, going into the non-Ladder areas of The Zone and
playing the crappy self-centred version of the game, is just an
exercise in frustration and eventually supreme apathy. Why bother
playing when you have no hope of hitting the ducker to your left and
the other two duffers aren't interested in hitting low?
After my lessons in 'how to play hearts', I got good enough to win a
few challenges, and move up the ladder. There are over 1200 people on
the ladder, and it's relatively easy to get games. A lot of plodders
are on there, forever in the 200-400 position, never grasping the
essential clues on how to play, and then there are the top 25 players,
who range from phenomenally skillful to merely very lucky.
I scraped up to position 22, and was ecstatic, only to suffer 23
losses in a row, putting me back down to the 150+ mark. A wild win,
and a further 15 loss streak made me completely despondent of ever
being capable of playing the damned game. I'm up at position 8 on
the ladder now, where the Heart's Ladder deity's reside, and it's very
damned difficult, but good fun.
Finally we get to the peeve bit;
Cases' Ladder has RULES. One of their strongest held rules is 'be
nice to one-another'. That means no disrespect, no 'cussing', no
aggravation. You're not allowed to have an offensive nickname, you're
not allowed to say offensive things to each other. Even typing 'oh
shit' in the chatzone after eating the QS, is a punishable offense.
Americans are the worst fucking puritans on the entire fucking planet,
and the Cases mob are sticklers for their rules. I treated it as a
huge joke "haha, I can't say 'fuck'", and people would berate me and
threaten to complain, and generally act like it was the end of the
world.
Of course, with such strict rules in place, the leagues of Soapboxing
Do-Gooders ready to shout STONE THE HERETIC are never-ending. If you
abuse someone for bad play ("why hit me with the QS you idiot, do I
look low?") can easily lead to them capturing the chat-log, firing off
a complaint to Cases, and you find yourself 'runged' -- moved down the
ladder for being rude and offensive.
Now I'm dead set against censorship of any form. Tell the fuckers
that they're cunts, and then squick them till they die! So being in
an area where 'social purity' is so highly regarded, was (and is) an
active emetic. But I LOVE the game, and so I mostly played by the
rules.
During my time there, I noticed quite a few players were quite blase
about their language, and were often being amusingly irreverent in
game areas. One such person is a 42 year old American with the
nickname of Irishrugby. (My nickname is 'excession'). I watched him
slag people off left right and centre for their card-playing
stuff-ups, or his own incompetence at the game, and made a decision to
baffle him with bullshit at every opportunity that I could.
He was not amused by my splenetic comments to and about him, 'Mr
Thugby', an ardent supporter of that disgusting sporting event, wasn't
happy with being lambasted, not one little bit.
One day I kibitzed a game he was playing, and on his last play, where
he was losing the game, I said 'I see Irish is playing his usual
game'. Instant total insanity. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" "HOW DARE YOU
COMMENT ON A GAME IN PROGRESS!", I just laughed and left. He
finished his game, and started a tirade in the lobby "Excession is a
cheat, he comments on people's games and lets people know what cards
you have", and similar crap. Not one to be vilified without right of
response, I responded with incredulous disbelief, and then we got into
a slagging match. Nothing out of the normal so far, and pretty
childish all 'round.
Then I get private (one to one) zonemessages saying that he was going
to fucking kill me, and I was going to be fucked up in the ladder. I
responded by telling him to shove his asinine threats up his fucking
arse, and he said 'HAHA, GOT YOU, NOW YOU'RE IN TROUBLE'.
You can see where this is going -- he captured the screen of me
'swearing' at him (zone messages are ephemeral, a little window that
pops up and disappears when you answer them, there is no log or
anything of zonemessages), and promptly filed a complaint against me
for 'rude and abusive behaviour' with Cases.
I laughed, and said 'go ahead, I have the evidence that you did
exactly the same thing'. But Cases rules specifically say that
'retaliation in kind is not allowed', if you are abused, you take it
to Cases, don't attempt to resolve it yourself.
The next day, I was 'runged'. I was at position 29 in the ladder the
day before, and I log in to find that I'm at position 529. "Rude and
abusive behaviour" was the reason. I was pretty peeved.
I wrote a message in Cases' Forum about how I would have to wear the
'punishment', but how hypocritical it was of IrishRugby, a frequently
complained about (and punished) individual, who goaded a reaction of
out of me, to be able to complain to Cases about 'rude' behaviour, and
score a direct hit -- no warnings, no 'first offense', just wham bam
thankyou maam, your 2 weeks of steady ladder climbing are erased
without recourse to the law.
Well apparently complaining about bad decisions -in public- is also
against the rules. A further complaint was lodged against me for
'whining in public' and I was immediately put 'in the box' for a day.
That meant I was not allowed to play anyone in the ladder (nor they
me) for 24 hours.
How fucked is that!
Anyhow, my period in purgatory is over, I climbed for #530 to #8, and
Irishrugby is languishing at position #180 or so, but is most probably
absolutely overjoyed at the outcome of his actions.
As I said at the beginning of this article, I desperately need to get
a life.
Fuck you all. :-)
Dac
--
David Andrew Clayton # Please remove NOSPAM. when
d...@NOSPAM.pcug.org.au # sending email replies.
I post therefore I am. # ICQ 6862357
Miles Teg
<dac...@dingoblue.net.au> wrote:
>After some increasing incidences of personal animosity, the game
>became too tendentious to be classed as 'fun' anymore after over a
>dozen years of playing, and in my last year of work, we simply
>stopped.
Rewriting history, are we DAClet? We stopped playing the day you spat
the dummy, threw your cards in and stormed off in a huff mid game
after I gave you a good dose of your own medicine.
<most of a very long sob story excised>
>Well apparently complaining about bad decisions -in public- is also
>against the rules. A further complaint was lodged against me for
>'whining in public' and I was immediately put 'in the box' for a day.
>That meant I was not allowed to play anyone in the ladder (nor they
>me) for 24 hours.
>
>How fucked is that!
You just can't resist the temptation to twist peoples dicks, can you?
Your story reads pretty much like your escapade in #perl, where you
also were banned.
Can't you *try* and learn a little diplomacy?
<SNIP>
>As I said at the beginning of this article, I desperately need to get
>a life.
I knew that if only I lived long enough you'd write something I
totally agree with. :-)
>
>Fuck you all. :-)
>
>Dac
--
Miles Teg
bashar_mi...@SPAMhotmail.com
ICQ: 48379286
"Just when you thought you were winning the rat race......
along come faster rats."
Excession
>Excession dac...@dingoblue.net.au> wrote:
>>After some increasing incidences of personal animosity, the game
>>became too tendentious to be classed as 'fun' anymore after over a
>>dozen years of playing, and in my last year of work, we simply
>>stopped.
>Rewriting history, are we DAClet?
You REALLY want to go down that slippery slope, don't you, hmm?
I would strongly advise that you resist your baser urges, otherwise
you could suffer quite badly.
Miles Teg
<dac...@dingoblue.net.au> wrote:
>Miles_Teg@Bene_Gesserit_Keep.Gammu (Miles Teg) wrote:
>
>>Excession dac...@dingoblue.net.au> wrote:
>
>>>After some increasing incidences of personal animosity, the game
>>>became too tendentious to be classed as 'fun' anymore after over a
>>>dozen years of playing, and in my last year of work, we simply
>>>stopped.
>
>>Rewriting history, are we DAClet?
>
>You REALLY want to go down that slippery slope, don't you, hmm?
>
>I would strongly advise that you resist your baser urges, otherwise
>you could suffer quite badly.
<shrug>
I'm sure. Did you know I used to be a member of the Hitler Youth, or
that I received the Order of Lenin from Stalin himself for services to
the Soviet Union in the Fifties?
Just to back up what I said in the last post, let's review one of your
posts to a.t.l of 24/07/99:
<snip>
> We played that game each workday lunchtime from 1991 until
> about 1996, when I had a hissy fit and packed in. We didn't
> play again after that sad occasion.
<snip>
Notice who had the 'hissy fit'? The facts are that your 'hissy fit'
precipitated the end of Rickety Kate in our card school. So stop
trying to absolve yourself of blame. You were a good player but pissed
people off by your actions and attitude, just as you are now doing in
The Zone.
>Dac
>
>--
>David Andrew Clayton # Please remove NOSPAM. when
>d...@NOSPAM.pcug.org.au # sending email replies.
>I post therefore I am. # ICQ 6862357
Hint: Why don't you stop the clumsy threats and try and become a
decent person? :-)