Yehuda Berlinger
Israel
Raanana
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Elijah 88, Gili 80, Jon 63, Miriam 44, Nadine 15*
With five players looking for a light game, I finally had my chance to try Mu, a highly-rated trick taking game for 4-6 players. The game has a table for the points required to make for your bid, and a separate table for bonus points for making your bid, and a number of interesting bidding and trump rules in between.
It's fun and interesting, but it's not really all that great. In fact, it's far better with four players than it is with five, which kind of defeats the point, since there are already so many good (better) card games for four. From my limited experience of three hands, it's biggest drawback is that, unlike many other cards games, you're simply going to do well if you have a good hand and poorly if you have a bad hand. Which is not the case for Bridge, Tichu, David and Goliath, and many other games.
Nevertheless, all of us except for Nadine enjoyed ourselves well enough. Nadine gave it two hands and then bowed out for the third. Elijah racked up a lot of points in the first two games, and neither chief was able to make his bid. In the third hand, played without Nadine, Gili was chief and took nearly all the tricks.
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Mark McEvoy
Canada
Ottawa-ish
Ontario
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I'm sorry, how is it you do well in Bridge with a bad hand?
At least in Mu you have the ability to turn bad cards into good by numeric trump selection. There's no such mechanism in Bridge. Hell, in Bridge you're discouraged from even initiating bidding unless you have a disproportionate share of the boss cards.
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Yehuda Berlinger
Israel
Raanana
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A) Duplicate bridge
B) Clever defense
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Lindsay Scholle
Australia
St Ives
NSW
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Okay, I'll bite.
While you are certainly entitled to make an opinion about a game based on a mere three hands of that game, if we're sharing I'd like to make a couple of points.
1. While you might not score as many points as someone who has a better hand, in Mü (as in many other games), it's what you do with your poor hand that matters. There's an opportunity to bid as chief and partner up with someone who has a complementry (an in itself also poor hand). There are other opportunities that exist with a poor or mediocre hand, but to go into every concievable scenario requires more a strategy book than a brief reply.
2. While you say Elijah "racked up a lot of points" it seems he only finished the three rounds with 88 points. Let me assure you that this is not a lot of points. If neither chief won their bid in the first two rounds then it looks like maybe players didn't maximise the potential of their hands and didn't attract suitable partners. In other words - just as with a bad hand it's what you do with your good hand that matters. An experienced player will usually win their bid and will even look at adding a card or changing their trump to maximise their points. (I find this aspect of the game similar to Skat where players can also drive up their scores by increasing their risk.)
3. I greatly enjoy the two parts in each round with Mü. I've found that with beginners during the bidding process they are a little reluctant to hitch up their skirts and show us what they've got. After a few games though people usually come out of their shells and realise the value of the no risk bonus points of being partner to the Chief, just as they begin to spot a pretender and see the value of bringing the Chief down. I've also found the more experienced Chief will often see that the partner with the best hand might be the safest win, but might not necessarily bring in the most points.
4. Don't even get me started on the end game where you'll be factoring in choosing partners based on how many points they have, choosing a weak partner and hiding the strength of your hand, stealing tricks from your partner to try and squeeze a few more points out of them, bidding up the Chief to set them up for a fall, and then there's always the sabotage partner (and how to avoid them). There's so many layers and so many delightful things to think about here.
You might have guessed, I think there's a lot more for even the experienced Mü player to explore with each outing. If it's not for your group, that's fine, but I don't think three hands is really giving the game a fair shake, do you? If I formed a similar opinion about Bridge after three rounds you too might think I'd reached a hasty conclusion.
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Yehuda Berlinger
Israel
Raanana
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Lindsay, definitely possible.
In my defense, I believe that an experienced Bridge player, not to mention an experienced game player, can judge a trick taking game fairly accurately after a few plays. But it's always possible that there's more than meets the eye.
Yehuda
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Mark Tyler
United States
Orem
Utah
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Yehuda wrote: In fact, it's far better with four players than it is with five
What are you basing this on? Two hands with 5 players and one hand with 4 players?
I assume the 4 player hand was "far better" because the chief was successful and the bidding was higher.
The overwhelming consensus among BGG players is that the 5-player game is best. I personally enjoy the 6-player game as much (if not more) than the 5-player game.
You are right that many good card games seem to require exactly 4 players. This is one reason Mu hits the table so often when we have 5 or 6 players.
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Steve Blanding
United States
Redmond
Washington
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I know I'm coming late to the party but I really have to say that I side with Lindsay (and the others) here. There is no way to get an accurate feel for the game after two or three hands. A decent game of Mü really should last at least 500 points. Any less and, you're right, the deals play too much of a factor. However, to really get the nuances of the game requires that you play many games; not a couple hands. There is a ton of strategy involved and most of it, like Bridge, is in the bidding, not the card play.
If you are a Bridge player, would you have thought someone could form a reasonable opinion of that game after only a few hands? Of course not. Mü may not be quite as deep as Bridge (perhaps debatable) but it certainly requires much more of a look than you appear to have given it.
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Gary Heidenreich
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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Scholle wrote: Okay, I'll bite.
While you are certainly entitled to make an opinion about a game based on a mere three hands of that game, if we're sharing I'd like to make a couple of points.
1. While you might not score as many points as someone who has a better hand, in Mü (as in many other games), it's what you do with your poor hand that matters. There's an opportunity to bid as chief and partner up with someone who has a complementry (an in itself also poor hand). There are other opportunities that exist with a poor or mediocre hand, but to go into every concievable scenario requires more a strategy book than a brief reply.
2. While you say Elijah "racked up a lot of points" it seems he only finished the three rounds with 88 points. Let me assure you that this is not a lot of points. If neither chief won their bid in the first two rounds then it looks like maybe players didn't maximise the potential of their hands and didn't attract suitable partners. In other words - just as with a bad hand it's what you do with your good hand that matters. An experienced player will usually win their bid and will even look at adding a card or changing their trump to maximise their points. (I find this aspect of the game similar to Skat where players can also drive up their scores by increasing their risk.)
3. I greatly enjoy the two parts in each round with Mü. I've found that with beginners during the bidding process they are a little reluctant to hitch up their skirts and show us what they've got. After a few games though people usually come out of their shells and realise the value of the no risk bonus points of being partner to the Chief, just as they begin to spot a pretender and see the value of bringing the Chief down. I've also found the more experienced Chief will often see that the partner with the best hand might be the safest win, but might not necessarily bring in the most points.
4. Don't even get me started on the end game where you'll be factoring in choosing partners based on how many points they have, choosing a weak partner and hiding the strength of your hand, stealing tricks from your partner to try and squeeze a few more points out of them, bidding up the Chief to set them up for a fall, and then there's always the sabotage partner (and how to avoid them). There's so many layers and so many delightful things to think about here.
You might have guessed, I think there's a lot more for even the experienced Mü player to explore with each outing. If it's not for your group, that's fine, but I don't think three hands is really giving the game a fair shake, do you? If I formed a similar opinion about Bridge after three rounds you too might think I'd reached a hasty conclusion.
I got to play this one last night and I was very impressed. I wish I hadn't traded the game years ago without playing. I now know a group of people who like this style of game and this one sucked me in before the first hand, actually (I'm a trick taking fan). It's different enough from some of my favorite trick taking games to push for this on a regular basis. I did not play with four but with five and six people. I think the beauty is the uneven teams (like Sheepshead) and the bidding and picking your partner. I can see so much going on with that, that I want to explore this game.
Great comments!!
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Yehuda Berlinger
Israel
Raanana
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FWIW, I'm warming to the five player game a bit. However, I find that the double charts (bidding, scoring) are scary to new players.
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