My inane rant about internet spades

[acrobat]

People annoy me sometimes.

Anyone ever play Internet Spades? The game comes free with Windows XP (I don't like solitaire or pinball etc.). Sometimes when I'm at work and I've got nothing to do, and im bored of reading the internet.. I play internet spades.

Its a really great game, and once you have played it a fair bit, it becomes really addictive. Infact... as nerdy as it may sound... I have sometimes cought myself playing it when I get home... When you have a dual core PC with an 8800GTX and a bunch of the latest games, and yet you still play internet spades.... you know there must be something special about it.

Anyway, what amazes me, is the insanely stupid stuff other people do. First off, I'd guess around 50% of games start with somebody leaving... Its a game with 2 teams of 2 people... So when one person leaves, it means its two people versus one person with a crappy computer AI as their partner. So when one person leaves, the other person usually leaves pretty soon afterwards. And when they leave... you are basically playing against a pair of stupid AI's, so you and your teammate usually leave too, to look for a proper game. So basically...... one person can ruin an entire game. So 50% of the time with the game, is spent hitting Alt G over and over... to join new game after new game, in the hope that you will finally find one with people who will actually stick around and play it. It never used to be too bad, and obviously some people are at work and the boss walks in so they have to close it fast... And some people have internet connection troubles. So a few people leaving abruptly from time to time is to be expected. But nowdays, I would estimate that over 50% of games end before they even started due to people just bailing out. Something that really bugs me about this, is that I am willing to bet, its because people look at their hand and see that its crap, so they just quit and move on to another game hoping they will have a better hand... What annoys me about that is that not only is it rude and selfish, but its also pretty stupid because the games last so long that even if you royally screw up in the first hand, you can still end up winning by an enormous margin - because anything can happen.

The next thing that amazes me, is that (I won't explain all the rules and stuff....) but there is one card in the game (The Ace of Spades), which is a garaunteed win. A spade is the highest suit, and the ace is the highest card. So the ace of spades is an absolutely garaunteed win - no matter what. The basic premise of the game is to bet how many wins you think you are going to get in a round, and if you are sure you have a hand full of crappy cards, you can bet zero... That means you have to lose every single turn, which with a bunch of terrible cards, is possible. And the reward is a huge score. If you fail though, you get a huge negative score. And yet... sometimes... I see people bet zero when they have an ace of spades! And then you see them play it and win... and I can just imagine them thinking, "Gawd damn! I won!!". What where you thinking was going to happen with the highest card in the game?!! Grrrr.

The craziest thing of all though.... (if anyone is still reading), is this... There are 13 cards for each player, and the cards are played one at a time, so there are 13 turns in a game. So when you place your bet, you are betting how many you think you can win during 13 games.... You take turns to make your bet, and you don't have to bet until you have seen what everyone else has bet. So a person with a brain... would watch what everyone else bets, and then place their bet. So, if the first person bets that they will win 5, then they clearly have 5 really good cards so will most likely win 5 in the round. Then the second person bets say 5 too... so that means between those two people, they are almost certainly going to win 10 out of the 13 rounds. So then the third person bets 2.... that means that between all the other players, they are predicting and aiming, to win 12 out of 13 hands. So the last person, if they had a brain, would either bet nil, or 1. Betting 2 or more is basically insane because there are only 13 cards, so you should never really bet more than is left, unless you had a really strange hand like queen king ace (of spades), or something like that which would garauntee you would win - even although everyone else is betting they will win all the cards. But anyway.... on almost EVERY game, almost every fricken person... bets before they have even seen what everyone else has bet! So the first person bets 5, second person bets 5, that means theres just 3 cards left for the last two people to bet on... but because everyone bets before they have even looked at what everyone else bets.... they all end up betting 5, which means theres a total of 20 bets for just 13 cards... So what happens? One team makes their bet, and the spazzes on the other team end up losing... not by just one or two cards... but by 8 fricken cards They then leave out of embarassment probably, and the game is over. Everybody wasted everybody's time to click a bunch of virtual cards for no particular reason.

Oh, and the last thing, is that if somebody bets a nil... then its their partner's job to make sure they never win. So if they play a 7, the other team will play their lowest cards... so if the 7 ends up being the highest, they screwed up and will lose a huge pile of points. So its your job to cover your partner and always make sure you play a higher card than them, if they bet a nil... So what happens in the world of dumbness? People bet before they look at the other bets... so one guy bets a nil, and then the partner bets nil too... Sometimes they even say, "Oops!" which shows they atleast realise they where stupid. But sometimes the game continues anyway. The guy who bet a nil plays an 8 (for example), and so the two people on the other team play whatever low cards they have (anything lower than an 8 is fine), so the last guy who also bet a nil... either plays less than an 8 and screws his partner, or plays more than an 8 and screws himself.

This may all sound like inane rambling, but if you have ever played the game or know how it works, you would know how amazingly stupid and ridiculous this all is.

Also, I could understand it happening once in a while... Obviously, some of these people will be 5 years old and have a lolly ice in one hand, and will be randomly hitting keys and mouse buttons with their other hand. But when this happens pretty much consistently, it makes me wonder what the frick is happening with people.

What totally baffles me, is that the game gives a kind of difficulty level. When you first play you are a novice, and then you can increase to intermediate, and then advanced. And when you are set to advanced, the game automatically finds other advanced players to play with... So I join an advanced game, hoping to get a good game... and yet the bunch of idiots all bet before they have even seen what the other players have bet. So all this madness is happening with people who are playing as "advanced" players...

I think the phrase is, "OMGZ WTF".

p.s. It shows a location for the players, and the majority of bad players have "English" under their location :O I am assuming thats just because there are more people with the English location than other locations though. Either that, or this country is bursting at the seems with really dummies =P

P.p.s. Obviously sometimes there are some really good games too. When you get a few other people who know how to play well, it can be a great game. But sometimes it can take a long time to find a few players with enough brain cells to keep them sitting upright for 10 minutes. By the way, there is a proper online version that you can play for real money if you are interested. I play it but I play it for fake money. Its limited to about $5 a go so I don't play it partly because I'm scared of becoming one of those gambling addicts who end up £90,000 in debt living in a cardboard box, and partly because even if I did do well, I'd make about a tenner which is hardly worth the stress. Its quite fun to play for pretend money though.

[Stewart]

More people will reply to this if you chop those monst0r paragraphs up a bit, so you can read them without losing your place 5 times.

I would say you've got too much to say about a card game, but I could ramble on for days about Texas Hold Em, so fair enough.

[joshwa]

I love it. (Never played the game but love this thread already!) Rant away! Rant for all your life!!!

Maybe you should setup a club whereby you only play people you know, then you know you're not going to play muppets!

[acrobat]

Originally Posted by Stewart

More people will reply to this if you chop those monst0r paragraphs up a bit, so you can read them without losing your place 5 times.

I would say you've got too much to say about a card game, but I could ramble on for days about Texas Hold Em, so fair enough.

I've got too much to say about lots of stuff =P I play Texas Hold Em too by the way But that game doesn't annoy me and I don't have much to say about that. I have a PC version of that but its played offline.

Originally Posted by joshwa

I love it. (Never played the game but love this thread already!) Rant away! Rant for all your life!!!

Maybe you should setup a club whereby you only play people you know, then you know you're not going to play muppets!

lol thanks! Rants are really healthy

As for the club idea, I actually did consider that. I thought about teaching a friend to play it and then going to Vegas and seeing if you can play spades there, in the same way as you can play Poker. (I prefer it to poker because its less about luck and its also generally easier). Its after thinking about doing that, that I stumbled across the professional online version that you can play for real cash.

Its great cause I can get really good games in that every time. People can't just leave the game if they see a bad hand etc.. because they use money to join the game. Whether its real money or pretend money, it still makes people behave properly It also seems to attract much better players than the one built into XP. Its cool.

I doubt I'd ever play for real cash though, like I said. I'm scared crapless of it after all the horror stories you hear. I'm not sure if thats parent propoganda or what Or perhaps its just really stupid people who don't know when to quit. But its also possible that its as addictive as crack but uses even more money.... In which case, I'll stick to the online one with pretend money, just to be sure

[awm]

I completely agree with the issues. I've played hearts online once or twice and have given up on the groups of ADD 8 year old kids who play with senseless strategy and abruptly quit.

[acrobat]

I like hearts too
Spades was my first love though. They both beat solitaire and minesweeper and stuff though. Atleast I think so.

[Brucelles]

Wow! I play both Hearts and Spades, but haven't played online for a while. I didn't know I could make money at it though. Ferrari here I come.

[iranu]

There are other versions of Whist such as "chase the lady" which I think is also known as hearts. I'd say that the only way to overcome your frustrations is to either join an online club (there must be loads) or delete the Spades.exe!

[acrobat]

Originally Posted by Brucelles

Wow! I play both Hearts and Spades, but haven't played online for a while. I didn't know I could make money at it though. Ferrari here I come.

Lol there are probably some good places to do that. The one use only has a prize of about 5-10 US dollars. And each one of those games takes about half an hour I think. So I doubt you could make Ferarri money But there must surely be some other ones online. I did play a few others, but they where just for fun ones.

Originally Posted by iranu

or delete the Spades.exe!

haha Its ok. I just play the new one I have now. The only downside is that its a bit slower moving, so its a proper half hour game... unlike the one in XP which you can sometimes get a game in, in about 10 minutes or so.

[Akwaaba]

Well that is a rant!

However, you seem to be at least reasonably intelligent, certainly above average. Therefore the majority of the people you meet will have a lower level of intelligence than you ....

But, I do loads of dumb things .... <<hangs head in shame>>

[acrobat]

lol I'm not so sure about that. I am quite thick in a lot of ways. Infact I was really rubbish at Spades when I was new at it. But you learn things each time you play, so by the time you are on "Experienced" mode, you should know most stuff. And yet I see people making bets without even looking at what other people bet

It would be like playing poker and betting all your chips before you even look at your hand

Oh well. Its a great game though by the way. I recommend it if any of you have never played it and ever end up sitting at a computer with 20 minutes to kill (and looking for nudey pictures isn't an option )

[explicitlyrics]

I've just had a rant about Adobe/Apple/Norton. Now that I've read this thread I wonder whether this board will become a massive rant forum for grumpy (though rarely old) men...

I can certainly see where you are coming from though

[acrobat]

Its all good, let it out

Infact, I could rant about the fact that we need to rant in the first place But we do. So much is wrong and there is so little us normal folk can do about it. And anyway, the world would be a much worse place if we didn't care about things. When we all give up and stop caring is when things are really stuffed

[Zak33]

I joined a game ....expecting it to be simple

I had no idea....click on an 8....and then left as I had noidea what was going on.

So...I ask you....was it the millions like me who just read your thread and thought "Internet SPades"

and looked in Start>All Programs>Games and thought.."Ah....I see..lets try"

Sorry bud...but I did it

[mallett]

haha just gave it a go, ended up being one of the annoying people who just go in and hit random buttons, so sorry about that.

If I'm right I think my team got -290, oh

[TheAnimus]

try drinking coffee?