Game: Mit List und Tücke

Thread: Re: Mit List und Tucke - Session Report

dlminsac — 2007-12-07T14:11:08+00:00

In response to Johns game of MLuT regarding control. On Dec 1rst we played a 6 player game with 6 rounds. Just about everyone agreed that there was a lot of control. You can not control every hand but you do have to know when to attack.

The game you played was only 2 rounds long. I feel that in that short a time with a new game you just had not 'learned' the game yet. We had 3 new players and 3 who had played with you before. It did take the new players a couple of rounds to get it and later during the game they were commenting on how certain people (Scott) were playing in order to dominate.

Give the game another chance and watch how others are playing.

Thread: Re: Mit List und Tucke - Session Report

Sprydle — 2007-12-04T22:02:05+00:00

gschloesser wrote:
reapersaurus wrote:
gschloesser wrote:
I’ve always enjoyed this game, and feels it gives players a larger degree of control than many trick-taking games.That's odd -
I feel this game gives much less degree of control than other trick-taking games, for precisely that same reason.

Since the other players have no obligation to follow in suit, then it doesn;t matter if you have great cards, the other players can just follow in whatever suit they choose, and you can be screwed.

There is simply no way to dictate the cardplay in this game, which (I thought) was a major criteria for "degree of control" in card games.

With proper "group think", you can really nail a person with unwanted cards. Even alone, you can often cause a trick to swing to someone who doesn't want it. I feel I have much more control in this game than many other trick taking games.

I agree. You have a HUGE amount of control in this game--the only way you end up with a little less control is if you happen to get dealt all middling cards in each color.

Though your (reapersaurus') conclusions are incorrect, your analysis is correct, you do not want to lead a high card, expecting to win colors you want, as your opponents will throw cards off--you don't want to lead the queen of spades in Hearts either, but that doesn't make it uncontrolled. And a "good hand" will generally be one which includes a mix of high cards and low cards in each color--it's not strictly that you want the high cards, and you definitely don't want to be void in a suit. And if you do lead a high card, it gives your opponents options as they decide whether they want to try and be the loserest by tailoring cards you don't want to cards they do want. Likewise you have a lot of options with each play as to whether you want to try and stick someone with cards they don't want, win the trick to be the decider, or purposefully lose the trick because you know what the winner wants to take.

There is more control in this game than there is in almost every other trick-taking game that I've played--which is why it's a slower game as each play requires a bit of thought. You cannot often have your card picked out before the play comes to you.

Thread: Re: Session Report

Sprydle — 2007-12-04T21:48:37+00:00

Also the scoring example you gave is wrong--if you have 4 cards in all four colors, your total is 2--multiply the your two chosen colors, 4x4=16, divide by your discards 4+4=8, 16/8=2. The scoring is not really difficult. Simply multiply you two chosen colors together and divide by the total number of other cards you took.

Thread: Re: Session Report

Sprydle — 2007-12-04T19:59:48+00:00

Just to clarify, they call it "trump" because the highest card played in that suit (the led suit) will win. You know, like a trump

Thread: Re: Mit List und Tucke - Session Report

gschloesser — 2007-11-25T13:03:02+00:00

reapersaurus wrote:
gschloesser wrote:
I’ve always enjoyed this game, and feels it gives players a larger degree of control than many trick-taking games.That's odd -
I feel this game gives much less degree of control than other trick-taking games, for precisely that same reason.

Since the other players have no obligation to follow in suit, then it doesn;t matter if you have great cards, the other players can just follow in whatever suit they choose, and you can be screwed.

There is simply no way to dictate the cardplay in this game, which (I thought) was a major criteria for "degree of control" in card games.

With proper "group think", you can really nail a person with unwanted cards. Even alone, you can often cause a trick to swing to someone who doesn't want it. I feel I have much more control in this game than many other trick taking games.

Thread: Re: Mit List und Tucke - Session Report

reapersaurus — 2007-11-25T10:46:56+00:00

gschloesser wrote:
I’ve always enjoyed this game, and feels it gives players a larger degree of control than many trick-taking games.That's odd -
I feel this game gives much less degree of control than other trick-taking games, for precisely that same reason.

Since the other players have no obligation to follow in suit, then it doesn;t matter if you have great cards, the other players can just follow in whatever suit they choose, and you can be screwed.

There is simply no way to dictate the cardplay in this game, which (I thought) was a major criteria for "degree of control" in card games.

Thread: Mit List und Tucke - Session Report

gschloesser — 2007-05-03T21:22:07+00:00

Not wanting to end the evening without playing a game we all enjoyed, we decided to end with the wonderful trick-taking game Mit List und Tucke from Klaus Palesch. I’ve always enjoyed this game, and feels it gives players a larger degree of control than many trick-taking games. I also enjoy its nasty personality, which allows players to stick opponents with cards they do not desire.

Here is an excerpt from one of my early session reports:

For a trick taking game, one of the unusual concepts players must get used to is that you are NOT required to follow the lead suit ... you can play any card you desire. Once all players lay a card, the player who played the highest valued card of the lead suit chooses ANY three of the cards played, while the player who played the lowest valued card which DID NOT follow the lead suit grabs the remaining cards. The number of cards gained can vary depending upon the number of players involved.

After a complete round, players must choose two of the stacks of colors they acquired to 'score'. These two stacks are multiplied together and then divided by any 'off' colors a player collected. An example helps make this clear:

John collected the following cards during a round of play: 5 Red, 6 Blue, 3 Green

He wisely selects the red and blue cards as his 'scoring' stacks. His score would be:
30 (5 x 6) divided by 3 = 10 points.

If there are any remainders, they are simply dropped.

Thus, during the course of a round, a player attempts to collect cards representing only two colors as any other colors collected will reduce his score. Further, one must be careful to not collect only one color, as this will result in zero points!

Another tricky element in the game is that if, during the course of a round, a player receives cards in all four colors, he must immediately decide which two colors will be his scoring stacks. Thus, for the remainder of the round he is scrambling like mad to collect these two colors and avoid the remaining colors. This, of course, is obvious to his opponents, who are constantly trying to 'stick' him with the colors he is not attempting to gather!

The game has some wonderful opportunities to 'hose' one's opponents. Plus, the ability to play ANY card and not being required to follow the lead suit gives one a host of options during play. Along with David & Goliath, this has risen to the top of my favorite trick taking card games. However, be warned that the game is a 'thinking' game and can bog down a bit as players tend to analyze the various options they have each turn. It is not a quick, card-flying affair.

We had time for two hands. After an abysmal first round, I scored BIG in the second round to capture the victory.

Round-by-round scores:

Round 1: Kevin 24, Rhonda 12, Gail 8, Rhonda 8, Greg 3
Round 2: Greg 49, Jim 18, Rhonda 14, Gail 12, Kevin 12
Finals: Greg 52, Kevin 36, Jim 26, Rhonda 26, Gail 20

Ratings: Greg 8, Kevin 7, Gail 6.5, Rhonda 6.5, Jim 5

Image

sjmarlow — 2006-06-04T23:38:57+00:00

The usual suspects...

Image

Verkisto — 2005-05-05T15:36:27+00:00

Thread: Session Report

MarkEJohnson — 2002-11-10T18:58:02+00:00

Trick-taking card games are a staple of our hobby. Pick up a Hoyles or go to www.pagat.com and you'll find a ton of traditional games that use a standard pack of cards to play such games. Then there are a few American games like Wizard or Trumpet that use a modified deck. In Germany there appears to be a popularity of trick-taking games that are just a little bit funky. Funky card decks, funky scoring systems, funky suit-following rules, or sometimes all three. Berliner Spielkarten is a publisher of several of these, and I've been interested in all I've tried. (Remind me to show you guys David & Goliath sometime.) MLuT features a 4-suited deck, ranked 1-14 for four players. (More cards are added for up to 6 players.) Here comes the funky part...

The card led determines the trump suit, but no one has to follow suit. On the other hand, there can be no more than 3 suits in a single trick. The winner of the hand gets to pick half of the cards in the trick to win, giving the leftover half to the "loser" of the hand (who played the lowest non-trump card). The reason you choose some cards over others is due to the scoring system--your score at the end of the hand is the number of cards you collect in two suits multiplied together, divided by the number of other cards you took. So, if you took 5 green, 6 red, 2 blue, and 1 yellow, then your score is (5x6)/(2+1)=10. But had one of those blue cards been a green instead, you would've had 18! Since cards collected are displayed face-up, everyone has an easy time of figuring out what their opponents are going for, and use that (and the critical rule about not needing to follow suit) to "poison" the trick with undesirable cards.

It can be a brutal game, both to your brain and to the game leader, but it's also very interesting and won some recognition (Gamers Choice Award nominee, and 5th place in Germany card game award, A La Carte).

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-09-04T23:25:33+00:00

We stayed outside for a game of Mit List und Tucke even though we were all ducking from a sudden grape storm. I had brought this up before but we never got around to it. I really like Schnappchen Jagd and the mechanics are similar so I was looking forward to playing. It took about 4 rounds to really get the game for some of us as the words trick and trump are foreign words.

It is a trick taking game in which you do not have to follow suit. There are four suits and all four suits can not be in a trick. First card played establishes trump. The winner of the trick takes half the cards rounded up and the lowest non trump card played takes the rest. To score you count your cards of the 2 suits that you have taken the most cards in and multiply them by each other. You then divide this by the number of other cards you have taken. All cards are dealt out (14 with 5 players) and when all cards have been played you score the round. There are as many rounds as players. You really have to keep an eye on what others are collecting in the game as it controls what you throw down in addition to what you need or are avoiding. I am really into trick taking games as long as I do not have to evaluate my hand at the beginning for scoring purposes as in Spades or Rage. Your tactics in this game can change fast at the beginning but they had better be set halfway through or you will be in trouble. As usual in a game that I teach I screw up the rules. With about 3 cards in each of our hands Meghan was unable to play because of the rule that you can not have three colors in a trick. It was at that time that I remembered the rule that that ends a round. After the first round Meghan had 21, Stephan 21, Marianna 12, Karen 12, and David had 14 points.

Karens allergies forced us indoors and we dealt out the cards for the next round. Now I am not saying that Marianna did it on purpose but between her score, rating and throwing the glass of water on the game instead of dropping it I am suspicious. This of course aborted the game amidst a lot of yelling and running around while I sat there stunned in shock and disbelief as the water slowly dripped on me.

Ratings...
Meghan 8 (and she is on a roll), Stephan 6.5, Marianna 5 (and she made sure we would never play again), Karen 6, David 8 for an average of 6.7

Thread: Session Report

derk — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Drew, John, Eric, Ken, Derk

This was during our semi-standard Saturday session. We were waiting for John, which is a new thing because he’s usually one of the first ones there. Drew broke out this little card game and ran through the brief and uncommon rules for us, when John waltzed through the door. We brought John up to speed quickly and we set upon the game. The game is a close relative to David and Goliath (it’s published by the same company), and I’ve hear lots of good things about it. So I was looking forward to the game.

There are four suits, and whenever a particular suit is led, you need not follow suit. However, only three suits may ever be played in one trick. The winner of the trick is the player with the highest card of the suit led, and the loser is the person who played the lowest non-led-suit card, with the first played card of a given value breaking ties. The winner then selects half of the cards (rounded up) for himself and the loser gets the remains. The round is over when someone cannot play anymore because by playing he would place a fourth suit into the trick. Then the scoring. This is really odd, and similar to David & Goliath. Players take the number of cards they have in two suits and multiply them, then you divide that by the number of cards that you took of the other suits. So four cards in red, three cards in green, and one blue yields a score of twelve. Four cards in all four suits gives a score of one. And sixteen cards of one suit only gives you zero. Very weird.

Play proceeded cautiously as we each searched for some handle on the arcane scoring system. It was really interesting to see the light dawn on faces as they came upon a strategy that fit the cards in their hands. I think John caught the subtleties first, as is apparent by his consistent scoring. But after a couple hands of this game, we decided to call the game, so we could get into something a little more substantive.

Eric: 6+42=48, John: 24+16=40, Derk: 2+35=37, Ken: 13+10=23, Drew: 3+1=4

I’m just not sure what to think of this game. I really, really enjoy David and Goliath, and I expected to like this game. But I didn’t. I think the first thing that really turned me off what that the rules and others refer to the led suit as trump, which is a bit of a misnomer. Players are either following suit or lagging other cards, not playing trump. The game is too similar to Hearts in that you’re constantly trying to avoid cards, and rarely trying to actually take tricks. Most of the time, you don’t want to play the low card, as you don’t want to rely on the kindness of strangers (as Drew’s score will attest to). And while you do want to take tricks, the ability to do so more often than not boils down to having the highest cards in a suit, and not skill in ferreting out certain cards. Certainly there’s an element to the game of trying to set up tricks where when you lose, the winner will give you the cards you need. This is the only reason that I scored as many points as I did in the final round we played. I could either set myself for a bunch of points, or play out the trick to the benefit of others. Perhaps I’m missing the finer points of this game, but I’m not sure that that’s case. Maybe I was thinking with my David & Goliath brain-set, and I just shouldn’t have. One of the things that really appeals to me about David & Goliath though, is that it’s not all trick avoidance or trick taking, and you don’t need high cards or low cards, you just need to play the hand you’re dealt well. I’ll have to play Mit List und Tuecke another time or two before I give up on it, but it’s officially come off my want list.

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

An even 10 were in attendance for another gaming night, with musical chairs being played as various games were at different stages of completion.

Having 5 'early birds' and about 1/2 hour or so before the rest of the crew arrived, I took a chance and brought out Mit List und Tucke, a clever trick-taking game with some unusual twists and a unique scoring mechanism. I say 'took a chance' as most of my fellow Westbank Gamers aren't too keen on trick taking games, but I felt this one offered enough strategy and opportunity to slam your opponents that it just might appeal to some of them. It actually went over fairly well, and I think the ratings would improve with further playings.

For a trick taking game, one of the unusual concepts players must get used to is that you are NOT required to follow the lead suit ... you can play any card you desire. Once all players lay a card, the player who played the highest valued card of the lead suit chooses ANY three of the cards played, while the player who played the lowest valued card which DID NOT follow the lead suit grabs the remaining cards. The number of cards gained can vary depending upon the number of players involved.

After a complete round, players must choose two of the stacks of colors they acquired to 'score'. These two stacks are multiplied together and then divided by any 'off' colors a player collected. An example helps make this clear:

John collected the following cards during a round of play: 5 Red, 6 Blue, 3 Green

He wisely selects the red and blue cards as his 'scoring' stacks. His score would be:
30 (5 x 6) divided by 3 = 10 points.

If there are any remainders, they are simply dropped.

Thus, during the course of a round, a player attempts to collect cards representing only two colors as any other colors collected will reduce his score. Further, one must be careful to not collect only one color, as this will result in zero points!

Another tricky element in the game is that if, during the course of a round, a player receives cards in all four colors, he must immediately decide which two colors will be his scoring stacks. Thus, for the remainder of the round he is scrambling like mad to collect these two colors and avoid the remaining colors. This, of course, is obvious to his opponents, who are constantly trying to 'stick' him with the colors he is not attempting to gather!

The game has some wonderful opportunities to 'hose' one's opponents. Plus, the ability to play ANY card and not being required to follow the lead suit gives one a host of options during play. Along with David & Goliath, this has risen to the top of my favorite trick taking card games. However, be warned that the game is a 'thinking' game and can bog down a bit as players tend to analyze the various options they have each turn. It is not a quick, card flying affair.

The five trick-taking fiends in our match were John Moore, Lenny Leo, Jon Comeaux, Eric Alleman and I. We managed to complete two hands before moving on to other games.

Jon skillfully collected only two colors during round one and blasted to an insurmountable lead (40 points). We all scored pretty much equally during round 2, which secured Jon's victory:

Jon: 40 + 10 = 50
Eric: 14 + 10 = 24
John: 14 + 8 = 22
Lenny: 8 + 12 = 20
Greg: 4 + 10 = 14

Ratings: Greg 7, Lenny 6, Eric 6, John 6, Jon 4

Thread: Session Report

dougadamsau — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Present: Doug, Janet, Roger, Dey, Alan, Donna, Bernie, Julian, Ann-Marie, David, Tina, Debbie, Graeme, Craig, Craig Mc.

Doug Adams writes:

Well, if I sat at Billabong for four hours with a foolish grin on my face it's because I think we broke our attendance record with 15 showing up, my long-searched-for copy of Extra Blatt is here, AND Counter #5 arrived courtesy of David. However, there were games to be played...

Janet, Doug, Dey and Bernie started up a four player game of this quirky trick taking game. This was new to Bernie, so we explained the quirks:

* first card led is trumps

* following suit is not mandatory

* highest trump gets to choose two cards

* lowest non-trump gets the rest (in a four player game)

* the arcane scoring system - the product of your two good suit piles, divided by the sum of your two bad suit piles.

Despite looking bewildered for the first hand, Bernie settled in nicely, however this was Dey's game (she's a bit of a demon in trick taking games), with a great 2nd and 3rd hand. Doug had the single highest score, but that wasn't enough to get him above 3rd place.

Progressive scores:
Dey: 9/37/61 - 73
Bernie: 21/27/39 - 55
Doug: 9/41/45 - 50
Janet: 12/18/35 - 36

Doug's rating: 7, a bit of downtime as each card can be potentially played to a trick, so some thought is required.

Thread: Session Report

dougadamsau — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Roger writes:

'With Cunning and Treachery'

Janet: 89
Doug: 47
Dey: 38
David: 37
Roger: 34

This was David's first play of ML&T, suggested as a contrast to David & Goliath. With five players (this was the first time we had played with an odd number of players), the player who plays the highest trump in the trick (the card led defines the trump) chooses three cards as profit, while the player who played the lowest non-trump card receives the remaining two cards. You don't have to follow suit. The object is to collect cards in only two of the four suits. Cards in the other two suits become a trash pile (a la Schnäppchen Jagd). Scoring is done by multiplying the number of cards for each of the two suits you are collecting by each other then dividing this by the number of cards in your trash pile, rounding down.

There is a real Knizian twist to this game. When taking your "profits" you often have to decide how much to help yourself as opposed to how much to nobble the other winner of the trick. Taking the cards you want may well leave the other player with exactly the cards they want (which is exactly what that player would have been aiming to achieve). However if you choose to nobble the other winner, this usually involves some self-sacrifice.

I much prefer this game to D&G. Generally I feel much more in control. David's reactions was exactly the opposite. Sitting to my right he commented that I was constantly underbidding him to try and take the second winner position. While this worked, I probably should have been a bit more selective about when I did this as I ended up with a lot of trash this way. In one round I scored 0 (in contrast Janet scored 45 in one round)! The second winner also leads in the next trick. This is a game where leading is just not much fun.

Doug writes:

Another trick taking game that we'd all, apart from David, played before. I must admit I like this one more than David & Goliath - it doesn't seem to bend the brain as much, and for me, a poor card player, that helps me and thus enhances the game.

The quirk in this trick taking game is you do not have to follow suit. The suit lead is trumps, and the highest trump card will win the trick. However the lowest non-trump card played gets in on the booty as well. The trick winner chooses his cards from the trick (three of the five in a five player game) while the loser takes the remaining cards (two in this case). All four colours cannot be present in the trick, and if a player cannot legally play, the hand ends immediately!

The object of the game is to collect as many cards as possible in two of the four suits, while avoiding cards in the other two suits. Trick cards taken are sorted into the four suit piles, and as soon as you've taken a card in each suit, you must immediately declare your "good" suits and "bad suits". At the end of your hand your score is, follow closely here, as follows:

(good suit 1 cards x good suit 2 cards ) / (total bad suit cards).

Wow. So if my good suits are red/blue and bad are green/yellow, and my booty is:

red cards: 4
blue cards: 5
yellow cards: 1
green cards: 2

..then my score is:

(4x5)/(2+1) = 20/3 = 6!

It does sound complex, but is actually quite elegant to play and you can easily tell how well your are doing. Tossing off a nasty colour to a trick to hurt another player does give you a wonderful glow, as well!

Our game saw Roger with a rainbow fixation, as he seemed to have all four colours in his tricks taken pile very early, with some healthy divisors. In fact the quote of the evening came from Roger, as Janet was audibly deliberating whether or not to nobble him, said "yeah right, if you do it I'll score zero, if you don't I MAY score 1". Hilarious, you had to be there...

We played three hands, which took quite a while as there is some down time here as hands, cards and trick piles are examined. Janet basically thrashed us. Doug's rating: 8

David writes:

I enyoyed this, but after all of one playing of MTUT I prefer David & Goliath. D & G just clicked for, but not this. Still, I was feeling a little out of things due to work (once again), and would happily play this one again. Like Alan (not present tonight), I'm a bit of a fan of trick-taking games. I find the seeming endless variety of games designed around trick-taking quite fascinating.

Thread: Session Report

dougadamsau — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Janet Ford writes:

I *like* this game. Players have just that bit more control than in David & Goliath because of not having to follow suit. Other than that it feels very similar to David & Goliath.

Scores:
Janet: 24/34/76/88
Dey: 28/34/42/77
Roger: 11/28/40/49
Alan: 6/23/29/33

Image

Aldie — 2000-04-24T04:45:58+00:00