My inane rant about internet spades

[Dooms]

I love how the mods are drawn to thread resurrection

Now... Time to try this Spades thing.

[peterb]

ah.. but it's not spam.. it's real people

Indeed - I just hadn't realised that spades took so long to play

I love how the mods are drawn to thread resurrection

The eyes that never close

[Kai]

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

This has something to do with the , " Spader effect" hasn't it ?

You know, when you lose one game of spades ,and then suddenly the whole world is changed .

Which is funny ,when you think about it ,because James Spader was in the actual film that changed history too - well sci-fi at least..

[MSDREE]

My inane rant about internet spades: I too, love internet spades and find it terribly frustrating when players do any of the things mentioned. It amazes me that there are so many mindless, gutless wonders in this world who can only think of some of those things to do. Here's a thought. Maybe they should create a game for them called "Who can beat the oncoming train" for them to play and see if they can win.

[anthony77963]

Wow blast from the past reading all this Yeah there are still occasionally some great games on there. It's probably only one in every 10 or 20 games lol, but at least it happens sometimes. And yeah as you and behr mentioned above, it can change drastically. That's why it's so silly people quitting on the first hand. You can be miles ahead, but then hit 10 bags and lose 100 points, and then get really unlucky and just miss a nil and that's down another 100 points... Before you know it, the other team have destroyed you. Or vice versa.

I also find that sometimes, it's totally based on luck of the draw. You sometimes get very strictly defined cards that you really can't do anything with. For example if you have an Ace of Spades and then a big bunch of low cards... then there is no real choice. You can play like a genius, or like a moron, and it would make no difference. You can't bid a nil because of the Ace, and you can't bid more than a one, because you just wont make it. So some games are very strange because sometimes both you and your partner get hand after hand like that, and you go through most of the game making about 20 points per round and the opponents are easily taking 50 or 60. Sometimes you'll get a lucky break near the end and they will have a disaster and you'll catch up, but occasionally it just goes all the way to anticlimatic ending and you lose without ever really having any chance to win, no matter how well you played. It's just another thing which makes the game interesting though.

Okay, I've been to this rant 2 or 3 times in the last year or so after finding it by googling "internet spades glitches", or something similar. Nice job, acrobat. You've done well. You seem like a nerd, but that's okay, becoz I'm a nerd, too. A tall middle-aged nerd, at that. Anyhoo, I finally decided to register and put in my 2¢ worth (yayy! i did the cents symbol!!) about this stupid spades game. In total geek fashion I numbered my items. Most are previously mentioned in this thread; for that matter, maybe ALL have already been mentioned.

1. My version is Version 6.1, Build 7601. For some odd reason it occasoinally refuses to load a game. It gives some error code number, of which I've looked up and it takes me to the MSN message board with numerous people with even more numerous complaints. My particular problem is mentioned several times in that board, along with some supposed fixes posted by what seems to be MSN Message Board helpers. I think I've pretty much tried all those "fixes", to no avail. What's really strange about the glitches is that, one minute it won't load a game, but I'll let it "sit" for about an hour and Voila!, the game loads with no problem. This, without me intervening at all.

2. Sometimes I'm nearing the end of a hand (maybe 3 or 4 cards left in my hand) and I'll click Auto-Play to allow the AI to play the rest of my insignificant cards. The problem is, if I click a card and then I then click Auto-Play it'll immediately follow my play with a play of it's own - thus, 2 cards are played in 1 trick (weird), and it gives me an error saying the server has received some corrupt data and will close. Well, it sufficiently ends that game, which sometimes upsets me becoz it was a good game!

3. This version allows around 2 minutes for a person to make a play. Gee whiz.... 2 minutes? Sheesh. I'd rather it was around 10 seconds, as in the improved MSN game site. Sometimes a player will wait the entire ~2 minutes to play in an attempt to stall the the other players. Most of the time this ploy works, as 1 or 2 of them will leave. I usually wait it out. When their time is up, I click the Nudge button to force their play. Half the time they play, half the time they allow themselves to get ejected. If they play, I sometimes click the Nice Try comment, followed by a smile. Yea, I'm sure they care.

4. I'm no expert by any means, but I've played in MSN Games and I usually get soundly thrashed and/or scolded for not knowing how to play. It seems the strategy there more or less includes bidding low, sloughing off, and bagging your opponent. ughhh.. it's sooo excrutiating! I don't have the patience or the desire to take part in it, so I bid aggressive - later finding myself the victim of a set...and of course, some "polite" scolding at the hands of my partner. The play in MSN Internet Spades seems to be aggressive. What's frustrating is this: for example, I'm holding a King of clubs, along with two smaller clubs. I can usually count on that king to take a trick, so I include him in my bid. My partner opens up with a low club. My right Opp plays a Jack or Queen. Sheesh, now what do I do? If I play one of my small clubs, my left Opp (who probably has the Ace of clubs) allows his partner to take the trick with his face card. The Opp who took the trick then leads another club. Well, of course my left Opp will take the trick with his Ace. More than likely, the 3rd time the club lead comes around, it will most likely be cut, so I lose out on my King trick on account of my partner breaking the suit with a small club.

5. Another glitch in the game is sometimes the game will not end when a team reaches 500 points. There is no apparent reason for this, as the other team has fewer than 500 points, so the game should be over, right? A couple times I've had the game go 2 or 3 hands beyond 500. The MSN message board helpers can not account for glitch.

Okay.. I hope I didn't bore ya!

[EliteSniper]

People annoy me sometimes.

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.

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 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...

The inherent problem with part of your rant is that people leave because people are waiting for others to bet, and get tired of waiting. By your logic, if all 4 players have a brain, then they should all wait for each other's bet, which means none of them bet, and the game stalls until someone leaves. Then it turns into your other hated scenario of playing with or against the AI. That strategy is good for later on in the match, but initially, I think it is wise to just bet your hand in order to get the game going. Besides, I have noticed that at times you are only allowed to see the player next to you until you bid, and then the other bids are revealed. There are also times when you are not allowed to see anyone's bid until you bid. I think that it is implemented so that players cannot always hold out to be the last one to bid on every hand.

What bothers me more than anything is that nearly 9/10 games if not more, start with a player bidding nil, regardless of the likelihood of success (for instance, holding the K of Spades). It is hard enough to find a good game where everybody actually makes a starting bid anyway, and then when you finally get 4 people connected successfully, one moron usually ruins it by bidding nil on a hand that will almost always take at least 1 or 2 tricks.

The rest of your rant I agree with, but I just had to point out that little idiosyncrasy because that sort of logic is exactly what cripples most games from even starting.

[behr]

The inherent problem with part of your rant is that people leave because people are waiting for others to bet, and get tired of waiting. By your logic, if all 4 players have a brain, then they should all wait for each other's bet, which means none of them bet, and the game stalls until someone leaves. Then it turns into your other hated scenario of playing with or against the AI. That strategy is good for later on in the match, but initially, I think it is wise to just bet your hand in order to get the game going. Besides, I have noticed that at times you are only allowed to see the player next to you until you bid, and then the other bids are revealed. There are also times when you are not allowed to see anyone's bid until you bid. I think that it is implemented so that players cannot always hold out to be the last one to bid on every hand.

But EliteSniper, the way the game is played is that the person to the left of whoever dealt bids first, then the next person continuing clockwise and so on until the dealer places the last bet.

There is no "waiting game" to wait and see someone else's bid before you bid. If you are the dealer, there is no way anyone is going to know your bid before they bid because you are THE LAST. Even if you PLACE your bid, it will remain hidden until the other players bid.

Knowing now that you are unfamiliar with the rules of bidding and that other players might also be sitting to the left of the dealer, first to bid but waiting, waiting, waiting to see the other player's bids (which will NEVER happen, they either placed their bids and the bids have remained hidden or they are patiently waiting their proper turn to bid)
I see how a lot of players might not be familiar with all the rules of Spades, how bidding works and therefore they experience more trouble and cause trouble for other players.

[cptwhite_uk]

Worst. OP. Ever.