The sixties were proliferated by pop groups whose (usually) fleeting
success was built upon one hit, and several successive singles with the same
tune and similar titles. So, the Swaggers would score with ``My Baby May
Leave Me Tomorrow (But I Pray She Doesn't)'' and follow it up with
``She Left (But I Pray She Comes Home)'' and ``I Pray She Returns To Tomorrow
(Now That She's Left)''. Gaming provides a similar opportunity. We now
have game series built around a word -- Elf (Alan Moon), Bean (Uwe Rosenberg),
Settler (Klaus Teuber) or notion. The latter is best illustrated by Klaus
Palesch, whose manipulation of the fundamental constituent of a deck of cards
has left me agog. And agog is not a state I often find myself in.
You will remember Herr Palesch's Hattrick as an unremarkable looking and
sounding game which has become our house closer of choice. The denouement
is simple. Try to collect one suit only and from the total number of
cards in this suit subtract the total of the other accumulated cards.
With Mit List und Tücke you try to collect two suits, multiply the two
totals together and divide by the number you have picked up in the others.
Adding and subtracting has been replaced by multiplying and dividing, but
other changes mean that the two games are more different than that might
make it sound.
The suit of the card led to a trick is trumps and a trick consists of
one card from each player. You are not obliged to follow suit, but a trick
can contain at most three of the four colours. The highest trump earns half
the cards rounded up (eg, three in a five player game). The person who played
the card chooses which to take. The player of the lowest non-trump colour
receives the balance of cards and leads to the next trick.
Stacks are kept open and so it is easy to see who wants what and, just as
importantly, who wants to avoid what.
MLUT works as well as it does, which is extremely well, because you are always
anxiously awaiting a card to add to a growing pile or trying to avoid the
unwelcome extra cards in the divisor stack that will bring your score for
the hand crashing down. More anxiety is caused by the fact that for the
first few tricks you are unlikely to be sure which are the best colours
to go for and the mechanics mean that you cannot be dealt a ``bad'' hand,
a sometime criticism of Hattrick. High cards, low cards, long suits, short
suits: all can be dealt with if you get it right.
If Palesch is able to add further tweaks to this system, then he will be
the next recipient of the ``Tarzan'' prize (for manipulation of a single idea)
currently held by Klaus Teuber.