Post by akavel in Card Drives comments

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I never played Poker, so the “Programs” were very confusing to me, I was not sure how to do them. Only when I saw the name “Full House” in there, I started having a suspicion: “hey, that sounds like a thing that cards people say; maybe it’s some kind of a specific thing in card games?” I’d be grateful if you could add explanations of those things in the booklet somewhere for people like me, who never in their life encountered those names - and even more so in English.

For others like me, here’s a list of those, as far as I could understand from Wikipedia - I may be wrong though:

(note: “rank” in those seems to mean the card’s “value” if it is 2-10 card; while for non-number cards, based on Card Drives booklet, it seems to be A=(1 or 11) and J/Q/K=10, except for Straight, where presumably “traditional” Poker values would apply, which seem to be: J=11, Q=12, K=13, A=14)

PAIRING (Pair) = a hand containing two cards with the same rank (for example, two “2”s), and the remaining cards having different values
DOUBLE PAIRING (Two Pair) = a hand containing two cards with the same rank, another two cards with another same rank, and the remaining cards having different ranks
THRILL KILL SHUT DOWN (Three of a Kind) = a hand containing three cards with the same rank, and the remaining cards having other ranks
STRAIGHT CIRCUIT (Straight) = a hand containing five cards with sequential ranks (e.g. 2,3,4,5,6, or 3,4,5,6,7, etc), with not all the same suits (because then it would be a Straight Flush, I think?) - note: “traditional” card values seem to apply in Straight, which would presumably mean: J=11, Q=12, K=13, A=14
FLUSH CACHE (Flush) = a hand containing five cards of the same suit, not all being sequentially ranked (because then it would be a Straight Flush, I think?) - note: I’m not sure whether the “traditional” or “Card Drives booklet” values apply here for non-number cards 🤔
FULL SHUTDOWN (Full House) = a hand containing three cards of one same rank, and two cards of another same rank (e.g. 3,3,3,2,2)
STRAIGHT KILLOTINE (Straight Flush) = a hand containing five cards of the same suit, in sequential order of ranks - note: “traditional” card values seem to apply in Straight, which would presumably mean: J=11, Q=12, K=13, A=14
FULL PAIRING (Four of a Kind) = a hand containing four cards of the same rank, plus one card of a different rank
CORPO KEYS (Royal Flush) = A,K,Q,J,10, of the same suit, I think?

Based on the above, I also assume probably to “play a program”, one has to use a hand of 5 cards always? though I’m not really sure about it - maybe e.g. for a Pair it’s enough to use/discard 2 cards? I’m even more confused with e.g. PAIRING which says “Draw 3 cards”, but then right above it is written: “After playing a program, you refill your hand to 7 cards.” - so how many cards am I expected to discard, and how many to have in my hand after playing the Program? 🤔

NotWriting18 days ago

You don't always need to play a hand of 5 cards to "play" a program, just the cards needed to fulfill the requirements of the hand. For example two-pair requires 4 cards, 2 of a matching rank and 2 of a different matching rank. Three of a kind requires you to play 3 cards from your hand: 3 cards all of the matching rank.

To play the pairing program you play 2 cards of the same rank (a pair) and then draw 3 cards. Then, if you have less than 7 cards in your hand you draw up to 7. To play the flush cache program you play 5 cards that all have the same suit, shuffle your cache into your deck, then draw back up to 7 cards if needed.

Hope that helps!

akavel18 days ago (5 edits)

Thank you! So, IIUC, this means as a result I might sometimes have more than 7 cards in hand, is that right?

Also, to clarify the ranks/values:

in “Pairing”, “Thrill…” (Three), “Full Pairing” (Four), and “Full Shutdown”, each of the “faces” counts as 10, so I can for example treat a Q+K as a “Pairing”, and for example Q+Q+K+J as a “Full Pairing”, yes? However, I can not treat Q+Q+K+K as “Double Pairing”, because again each of them counts as 10, and “Double Pairing” requires pairs of different values/ranks, right?
if I have Q+Q+Q+K+K, I cannot treat them as “Full Shutdown”, because they all have value 10, while they should have different values, yes? or can I?
for checking “Straight Circuit” and “Straight Killotine”, the values of faces & aces are interpreted as: J=11, Q=12, K=13, A=14, yes?
if I have a “Straight Killotine” (Straight Flush), can I also play it as “Flush Cache” (Flush), or not? in somewhat other words, to play “Flush Cache”, can I assume that I can ignore values/ranks of cards, and just check if I have 5 cards of the same suit, regardless of their values/ranks? If not, then does the faces=10, ace=1/11 valuation apply (making faces disadvantageous for “Flush Cache”), or the: J=11, Q=12, K=13, A=14 one?
“Corpo Keys” = A+K+Q+J+10, of the same suit, yes?

NotWriting18 days ago

Each face card counts as 10 only when looking for a value, for example if you want to exploit a node that has 10 you would need to play 1 or more cards that have a total value of 10. So a jack, queen, or king would work there. This also matters when upgrading your deck when you jack out, as the cards you pull are checked for their values.

However when looking for pairs you need 2 cards that have matching ranks. So for example a queen and a king are not a pair because they are not the same rank. Two queens are a pair, two kings are a pair, and two kings and two queens would be two pair, or in the parlance of this game "double pairing".

Full shutdown, or a full house, requires 3 of one rank and 2 of another different rank. So 3 queens and 2 kings would count as a full house.

You can only play one program at a time, so a straight killotine would not also count as a flush cache.

Corpo keys is a royal flush, which means 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace all of the same suit.

akavel16 days ago (2 edits)

Ohhh, ok, thanks, that’s very different from what I understood! I read the following guideline in the booklet, and I assumed I need to follow it: “Aces have a value of either 1 or 11, face cards count as value 10 outside of a straight” - that face cards count as 10 except in programs named “Straight”.

As to the Straight Killotine vs. Flush Cache, I wanted to ask a different question actually, I now see I didn’t phrase it clearly enough: what I want to ask, if I have cards for a Straight Killotine, can I instead play them as a Flush Cache? i.e., let’s say I have 2+3+4+5+6 of one suit, so I could play them as Straight Killotine; but do I have the choice to instead treat and play them as Flush Cache? Or is it required for Flush Cache that the ranks must not be fully sequential, that I can only play a Flush Cache if the cards do not form an unbroken sequence?

EDIT: Ahh, and also then, for a “3 SEQUENCE” Exploit, can faces be used here, or only “number” cards? and if faces can be used, they count as a “10” each, yes? or again as ranks?

NotWriting16 days ago

So one of the inherent assumptions in poker is that you are always playing the strongest possible hand, and that assumption is also true in Card Drives. As a straight flush is stronger than either a flush or a straight, if you play 5 cards that share a sequence and are all in the same suit, that always counts as a straight flush.

Face cards can be used in a 3 sequence exploit. This is another inherent assumption in poker, that face cards have a rank that puts them in Jack, Queen, King order, and that order comes after the 10 card. So for example a 3 sequence could be 9,10,J, or 10, J, Q, or J,Q,K, or Q,K,A.

akavel16 days ago

Thank you! So this sounds like I cannot use a Straight Killotine as a Flush Cache instead. Thanks for the clarification!

FWIW, as I wrote before, I have no idea really about poker; that’s why I have no slightest idea about its inherent assumptions. I did not see a warning in the game’s description that “you must know poker rules to be able to play this game”, so I did not make such assumption :) Part of me asking those questions - other than sincerely just not knowing the answers and trying to clarify and understand how I could play it - is to also try and show to you that there are people like me to whom those poker parts are the furthest from obvious, so you might consider including some such basic explanations somewhere in the rules, if at least in the Full Blown Kickstarter Version, to make sure people with zero poker knowledge can still enjoy this game :)

itch.io

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