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What are good resources or techniques to improve one's offence or finishing game?
I'm a moderately skilled chess player; I can beat most casual players and survive quite a while against class A, expert, or master players. Unfortunately, virtually all of my skill is in control of the center and defense. I have almost no ability to then pin someone down and actually win the game; if a person is close to my skill level or above, they will likely ultimately win.
Are there any resources for learning more offensive strategies? Even if the techniques are a little heavy handed, I could learn from seeing them. Most guides I've seen focus on a balanced style, but I feel with such an unbalanced one already, those wouldn't help as much.

Get a book of checkmate problems, and go through the whole thing.  Then find another, and do the same thing.  When you are done, you will have no problem attacking.
Once your feel comfortable with simpler checkmate problems, get a book of general problems.  After all, in a real game, not every move is forced checkmate :) One of my favorites (which is extremely challenging) is Winning Chess Tactics Illustrated by I.A. Horowitz.
Another very good site for these is chesstempo.com, which will adjust the difficulty of the problems it shows you based on how well you do.
After you get a bit better (after, say, 5000 problems), if you are still interested in improving your attacking skills, I highly recommend Vladimir Vukovic's book Art of Attack in Chess.  Also, study the games of World Champions Tal and especially Alekhine, widely considered to be the greatest attackers of all time.

You're in an interesting position -- most players, especially below master level, are much better at attack than at defense.  In fact, adopting an "attacking" style that is not necessarily perfectly sound (i.e., gambits that trade material for initiative) will very often result in the opponent "folding" under the pressure of a steady onslaught.
+1 to Shannon for recommending endgame study.   It's my favorite part of the game, personally.   When you know endgames well, you will see in your games the opportunity to steer the game (by making certain trades of material and creating certain pawn structures, for example) toward favorable endgames and away from unfavorable ones.
Of course, study of tactics is really important, especially in developing attacks.   You say you love to control the center -- well there's a reason for doing this in chess, it's to give your pieces a launching point to attack!  If you can amass your army in the center against a point around the opponent's king, beyond your opponent's ability to defend, you can win by throwing material at the opponent's king to open lines to the king, then mount a checkmating attack (as Fischer said, "sac, sac, mate!").
One thing famous chess instructor National Master Dan Heisman (http://danheisman.com) recommends is to study annotated collections of master games, relatively quickly.   After going through a sufficient number of games (around a thousand or so?  That's why you should go through them quickly!), you'll really start to get a feel for moves that masters make, and how they take advantage of positional advantages like center control.
Also +1 to BlueRaja for Art of Attack in Chess.  A great book about attacking themes and patterns, so you can recognize the possibilities for attacking the king in your own games as well.

I realize my skill set is unusual. It's because I learned to play in a vacuum; after a brief introduction to the game from my father, I learned by exclusively playing against myself. It's really hard to learn attacking against oneself when you know all the traps being set; instead, you develop ironclad defenses.

Yeah, it's hard not to make every answer a cheerleading call for Dan Heisman, but he really is the best thing that ever happened to the improving chess player, bar none.  He changed the way I look at chess playing and improving forever.  His writings are priceless (and most of them are free!).  You don't need hundreds of chess books (like I have), you only need a select handful, and the right advice on how and when to read them.

Checkmate and other chess puzzles can be a good way to practice but what you probably need to do is study the Endgame.
This is a deep and nearly endless area of study but likely even some study of how to win in a variety of endgame situations will help your game considerably. It will, for example, help you identify when you can win with a King & Pawn vs. a King and when it is a likely draw (or more likely when it is a King & Pawn vs. King and Pawn whether either player can win).
It is a bit out of date but a very solid starting point would be my favorite chess book, Emanuel Lasker's Manual of Chess. The whole book likely would help your game, but his opening chapters cover the endgame in some detail.
In essence the art of finishing chess games is the art of getting to (and then accurately achieving) a winning position. The simplest winning positions are endgame positions with few pieces left on the board. In fact many puzzles are endgame positions disguised with the addition of additional (but unnecessary) pieces on the board. Once you are confident that you can win with just a few pieces (and in particular that you know when you can win with an extra pawn or a given pawn position vs when you can draw vs when you will lose) your middlegame likely will gain in confidence.
This is a bit of a generalization but I've found that beginners at times end up in the "endgame" through back and forth trades of pieces/loss of pieces and then may spend a lot of time trying to find how/if one side can win.
More advanced players will often strive to win in the middlegame (and may at times) but then flounder a bit when their attacks are met and the game moves to an endgame situation (which becomes a bit rarer for players of some skill)
Experts (and masters) will less often see "real" endgame situations (as they will more often recognize that they have lost and resign) but their skill and confidence with their endgame is what allows them to avoid it (for the most part). In timed, tournament chess this confidence and skill will often be decisive as the clock becomes a very real factor especially in complex endgame situations.

Your issue is that you tend to play "balanced" games. That seems to serve you well on defense.
To address your particular issue, you might want to seek out "unbalanced" games. Examples would include situations where you sacrifice a piece for two or three pawns plus a positional advantage, or the "exchange" for one or two pawns. Or play more gambits, where you sacrifice a pawn for positional advantage. Even positions where one player had an extra pawn on one side of the board, and the other player an extra pawn on the other side might help.


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Short-version of Settlers of Catan
What are some rule changes that shorten the game, and what drawbacks do those changes have?
Please limit your answers to rules changes with which you have first-hand experience!

possible duplicate of How to reduce slow starts at the beginning of the game?

Are you asking what the existing standard ways are, or are you asking for suggestions about how to speed up your game?

I don't care whether the rule changes are standard, just that you have some first-hand experience with those rule changes and can speak to their effects on play.

@Lance I hope the answers here differ from the ones at 'how to reduce slow starts,' given that many game-shortening rule changes have nothing to do with slow openings, but we'll see.

We've tried to replace the robber with a more benevolent figure (we used a LEGO Dumbledore microfig but you can just reuse the robber figure and call it, say, a magician)

When you roll a 7, move the magician to the tile you want
If the number on which the magician sits is rolled, all tiles overlooked by the magician get double the ressources for that turn

We came up with that because we don't like the robber that much, and it sped up the game quite a bit. Now, I suppose any house rule which gives more ressources would shorten the game length, but with that one is slightly strategic in nature.
Of course there's also the bog-standard way to change the duration of the game: instead of 10 victory points, aim for less (8 for example). As long as you agree before starting the game :-)

I will have to try the magician next time I play!

Very interesting rule change... Also, thanks for reminding us that we do not have to play to 10 points every time. :D + 1

I assume you keep the roll that you have to move it on a 7?

Do you still lose half your cards if you have over 7 of them when a 7 is rolled?

We usually play Settlers of Catan with resource cards exposed.  This dramatically shortens the trading, as there is no question of whether any player owns a particular resource.  The 'drawback' of this, is that players no longer have to remember what's been received.
Another tactic we use to shorten the game is playing quickly.  This isn't really a rules change, but if players agree at the beginning that they are hoping for a quick game, then this seems to give enough motivation for everyone to do so.

I never knew that they were supposed to be hidden. It seems like keeping them secret would just waste time and not really add much to the experience...

@Crazy, the monopoly card is much less risky to use if resource cards are always exposed.

@Dave Though, you can overcome that if you have a good eye for the resource stack sizes, even if you haven't been paying attention to rolls. If the wheat pile is at about two-thirds its original size (19), there are about 6-7 wheat cards outstanding.

@war, that's true ... although one difference is that with face-up cards, you can pick a resource and also target a specific person who has quite a bit of it. Without tracking rolls, it's harder to do with face-down cards. (One downside to playing computer versions exclusively now - I don't own Settlers and am not around friends who do - is that you don't actually see physical cards, so I'd forgotten that there's actually a stack of wheat!)

Seem like it would make knights a lot more powerful since you know the spread of resources when thinking about stealing a card.

In the setup phase, place a settlement first, and then a city second. This is one of the common changes that many of the longer adaptations feature and it just helps you get going quicker at the slower/earlier stages of the game.

Doesn't this give a huge advantage to player 4? In addition to getting to coordinate his city and settlement, he gets to place his city in the 4th-best spot (players 3-1 get theirs in the 6th-8th).

For games like Cities & Knights where Cities can massively help you get victory points through Metropolises, sure they can. But for normal games, I think it's ok. Give it a try :)

When we only have time for a short game, we will eliminate the robber and allow each play to take a resource of their choice on roll of 7.  It cuts the time a lot, and eliminates a lot of frustration when playing with people who are inexperienced with the game.
(I like the using a city for the second settlement idea, and the gold if no resources.  I want to try them!)

My preferred way to play is having 2 resource productions before each player's turn, which will come close to halving the length of the game. This takes out most of the waiting, because you will almost always be building something new every single turn.
The only problem is that its harder to get rid of your resources before a robber hits as you have to 'survive' twice as many potential times where a 7 might come up and make you discard. To balance this, you could allow an 'intermediary building phase' at the end of every player's turn where all players are allowed to build, but are only allowed to trade with the active player (this is how the 5-6 player expansion works).
If you really want to make the game quicker, you can eliminate the concept of turns altogether and let everyone build and trade at once after a designated number of resource productions happen, but this will make for a bit more chaos as players race to get the best trades and build a settlement in a choice spot as they no longer have to wait their turn before doing so. However, if your group likes a tenser, fast-paced game it's worth a shot.
I personally prefer to use a deck of cards with the same probabilities instead of rolling dice. Its a lot faster just to draw the top card of the deck, and its a ton more flexible because you can choose to go through the entire deck before reshuffling, so each number is guaranteed to come up a certain number of times. If your group doesn't having to randomly discard resources a lot, just remove a 7 or two from the deck. IMHO this adds a fair bit more strategy and flexibility that makes the game more enjoyable. :D

Interesting. You mention that people could use the special building phase found in the 5-6 player expansion -- is that what you personally use?

@warbaker Since I use a deck of cards instead of dice I usually just remove one, maybe two 7's from the deck. This gives you a similar effect of robber-reduction but makes the game less hectic. I only mentioned the other way for people who play with dice and can't tweak the probabilities themselves. :D

Gotcha. To get an equivalent effect, die-rollers could simply declare certain 7's to be rerolls. For example, declaring 1+6 a reroll is equivalent to removing two cards.

Removing the 7 can help fasten the game, what we did was, when you get a 7, you can either play it normally, or reroll (if you then get a second 7, you must play it as such).

Stolen from Settlers of America.
A new currency is added: Gold.
On any non-robber roll if you receive no resources you receive 1 gold. Gold can not be stolen, but it can be traded to other players (usually 1 gold to sweeten a deal), or traded (maximum of twice per turn) to the bank for any resource at rate of 2 gold=1 resource.
This doesn't speed up the game a ton, but like most of the other answers putting more resources in the game results in a faster finish.
We've talked about (but have not play tested either of these yet) having a settlement on the desert give you 1 gold when the robber is rolled OR having any settlements on the desert gives you a single extra gold when you receive no resources (never more than 2 though, even if you have 3 cities around the desert.)

A rule variation that I prefer is to limit the movement of the robber:
When a 7 is rolled or an army played, can move the robber one hex position.
This speeds up the game with more resource production, since you can't automatically move the robber to the location where your opponents produce the most resources.
Drawback is that robber tends to stay in the same area of the board so one player can get stuck with the robber for much of the game.  So this becomes another strategic factor in initial placement an village/city construction location.

We have found that slowness has a varying impact. Slow is ok when it's not boring (unless dinner is burning while you're "nearly finished!" for an hour), but slow is awful when it's boring. The worst possible slow part is the very beginning, with endless fussing about which direction to build in, and the worst is those very first few moves. We therefore have a house rule:

for the first three full turns, if you want to move one of your original two roads so that it connects to the same settlement, but goes in a different direction, you can.

This means that people still hum and haw about where to put the settlement, but they just plunk the road down immediately and we can move on. It also lowers the "I would have won except you cruelly blocked me on turn 2 and I had no chance I hate this game."
The other thing that slows a game tremendously is a very early robber release. When hardly any hexes are producing, stopping one has more impact than it does later on. So our second house rule:

for the first three full turns, a roll of 7 means nothing, roll again.

This prevents that slowdown and also the associated "I would have won but you randomly chose me for that robber on turn 3 and I had no chance I hate this game."
Honestly, a game where one person is just stuck with two settlements, two or three road segments, and basically nothing for the whole game, while the others work their way up to 7, 8, 9 points before that person gets a 3rd or 4th point is not only slow, it's less fun. So avoiding the two biggest causes of someone cratering is a good thing. Some of our more serious-gamer friends mock us for these rules and say that's what happens when you let your children play, but we've noticed that they speed up games and make everyone happier, so we're keeping them. (And the friends are happy to take advantage of those rules when they play at our house.)

Simply change the goal.

The game is too long? Then the goal is to reach 7 points.
The game is too short? Then the goal is to reach 12 points.

You can basically do that with any "number of points to win" game, it's so simple no one ever thinks about that!

Play no-trade reverse robber.
No trade is straight forward enough. No trading with other players is allowed. This means all the negotiation in turns is removed, which means you're often just rolling, picking up your resources, and passing the dice. You are still allowed to trade with the bank/ports.
Reverse robber. When you roll a 7, you are not allowed to put the robber on anyone else, unless you forced to. ie. You must either place the robber on an empty tile, or place it on your own tile. If there are no empty tiles, or no tiles that aren't solely occupied by you, then you may put it on a tile that you share with someone, and steal from them.
There are two variants of this rule. RR is stricter and says whenever you move the robber, whether by 7 or by knight, you must place it on yourself/empty tile. RR7 says that you're allowed to place the robber where you want, when you're playing a knight.
The effect this rule has, is that the 6/8s tend not to be blocked, so resources flow more freely.

We use a rule that both speeds up, but also helps NEWBIES and feel it is completely within the spirit of EuroGames giving a leg up to those falling behind and keeping them in the hunt!
Whenever 3 or more points behind the leader (of course only for visible points, not counting Victory Points!), any player that far behind, when their turn, and for the complete turn, their resource cards are WILD: simply count out the number of cards irrespective of what they are for any build: any 2 cards for a road or ship, any 5 for a City upgrade, etc. etc.
It adds a new strategy where people have ended such turns without "catching up" but rather achieving some "set up position" so that they may use this rule on their next turn also, turning it into a "two turn catapult!".  For example, building a longest road without completing it, and leaving open a gap that no one can close, so that you can easily close the gap and complete the road next turn, along with whatever else you do.  I've actually won games using this strategy, "catapulting" over the other players!

I have also heard of the playing with the resource cards face up but I hate this house rule because it takes away the fun of bluffing. Here's a couple suggestions:

Come up with a standard way to phrase the bartering. I'm not sure how to do this but there has to be some way to avoid those confusions where people themselves want the same resource as you. Maybe players could say either: I want X, or I have X.
Allow players to pick a random resource whenever they don't gain a resource from the dice roll.
Institute a penalty for not passing the dice when your turn is over. Either losing a random resource card or losing a turn, depending on how harsh you want to be.
Find one of those 1 minute hour glass things used in games like Pictionary and use that to make players take shorter turns. You could have a lose a turn penalty for going over too.
Last, play to a smaller number of points. I like this the least as it doesn't allow for the normal progression of the game.

The items above with strikeout are ideas that I have not personally tried, at least not exactly as written. I didn't see that part of the question before. Feel free to edit/delete this answer if you like.

-1 doesn't sound like these suggestions have been tested.  As the question notes, answers should be based on personal experience (or set your references).

// , @Pat, it looks like ZombieDev has updated the answer appropriately. I can also corroborate that #4 in the list above. When done in response to the sort of player agreement mentioned in tttppp's answer, it can help a genial group of players keep track of themselves. My family has used this to good effect with a 2 minute setting.

// , What drawbacks do those changes above have, @ZombieDev?

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What are common contracts in Catan?
Players in my Catan groups never reneg on deals, so we have a number of common contracts. For example, we often sell each other a "Not-Hit," the right to be avoided the next time the seller gets to move the robber. We also often sell future cards -- I give you my wheat now in exchange for your next two rock.
It took us a while to commoditize these now-ordinary contracts, though. What are other common contracts people use in Catan?

I'm curious -- do you do this verbally, or do you have cards for these things?

At first we did it verbally, but now we pass each other spare wooden pieces as signifiers of the contracts: roads for Not-Hits, and occasionally settlements/cities for future cards (those resolve quickly, so it's not as important to use a token for them).

I think the idea behind this question is one of interest to many Settlers players. However, this question did not spell out the details of the rule variant or request such details, did not make clear whether Catan rules should be obeyed or broken, and had a title question which was unclear. The result was a highest voted answer which argued for why answering the question at all is a bad idea, while subsequent answers addressing the Q are nearly ignored. I have posted a different Q which I believe stands a better chance of leading to a clear Q&A:

The new question is: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/6448/how-to-include-promises-for-future-trades-or-other-actions-as-part-of-legal-tr

We don't use contracts with the group of friends I play Catan with.  While it's an interesting idea, trading resources for nothing in return during the trade is explicitly against the rules of the game.  Also, the player who's turn it is has to be involved in all trades being made during that turn.  So, a player giving resources to a player they promised them to previously would break two rules in the game.
I could have some of same problems as allows players to bribe off the robber if players start trying to extort resources from each other..  It would be easy to abuse, and adds complexity in the game since you would have to track contracts.  Players would have to be to surrender the resources promised when they generated them in order for this to work.  I personally don't think the added complexity would make the game better.  It would certainly deepen the trading aspect of the game though.
For those not familiar with the topic of bribing off the robber, we discussed this previously in, Is bribing off the robber a good addition to Settlers of Catan?

We do require that you only enter into a new contract with the player whose turn it is. Additionally, we only allow players to pass resource cards at the appropriate times under the rules. For example, when I gain the rock I owe you, I don't pass it to you until it's either my turn or your turn.

While it may be true that people who play by the letter of the rules can't use contracts, my purpose in asking this question was to learn from people who play more like my groups. :)

Your the first person I've heard to adopt this set of rules, but I've only played Catan with my friends.  We stick to the original rules.

"Also, the player who's turn it is has to be involved in all trades being made during that turn." I haven't played Catan, but I understand the 5-6 Player Extension explicitly allows players to trade with each other even when it isn't their turn, in order to speed up the game.

@Powerlord - Players are allowed to build in a "special building phase" when playing 5-6 players after the player who just went.  Players may only use the resources they have on hand, and may not trade with each other, or the bank.

What if I can no longer fulfill the contract I made with you by the time I get my turn?

We have a simpler version of this that adds much richness to the game despite the simplicity: "future trades." It works as follows:

All Catan rules must be obeyed (trades only on your own turn, at
least 1 card offered by both parties)
When a legal trade is made, a future trade can be included as part of
the deal. So you can offer a brick and a "future trade" in return for
a wheat (you would only do this if you desperately needed that wheat)
The terms of the "future trade" must be made clear (i.e. The player
granting the future trade agrees to trade a single resource of the
type to be specified at the time the future trade is made in return for any resource that the recipient wants to
give. This particular trade is the standard contract that is used for
over 80% of future trades in our games)
The recipient of the future trade can cash it in at any time it is legal for the 2 players who entered the agreement to make a trade

Note that Catan rules do not have a mechanism for enforcing future trades to occur as promised. However, we always point out to people considering reneging on the contract that if they do so, they are unlikely to be a party in future trades in any future game, as nobody would be able to trust them. For this reason, every future trade I've ever been a part of has been honored.
Note also that for experienced Catan players, future trades are very powerful and can be used for both offensive and defensive purposes. After seeing future trades employed just 2 or 3 times, most players learn to greatly fear and respect granting a future trade to one of the better Catan players at the table.

A common contract for those I play with is what instigated my question about Bribing Off the Robber (noted by ICodeForCoffee).  This is similar to your Not-Hit contract, but with more immediacy.  It sounds like all of your contracts are futures tradings.  Our play would be loose enough to allow for such a thing and also has the keep a contract virtue, but I'm not sure we would be willing to risk future cards.  It would be interesting to see what happens if this were set up explicitly at the start of a game.

Incidentally, posting an answer to Bribing Off the Robber is what inspired me to ask this question in the first place. :)

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Settlers of Catan Data
I'd like to do some statistical analysis on Catan games, but to do that I need data. Does anyone know of a place I can find empirical data on Catan play? The stronger the players, the better.
Awesome datasets include:Records of tournament play
Log files from electronic Catan games, with preference for strong human play

Analyses I'd like to do include:
 Empirical win percentages as a function of seat
 Total resources-spent by the winning player, by type
 Final assets of winning player, including all settlements, cities, roads, and development cards
 Total quantity of trading by the winning player

Really, I'd be happy if I could perform even one of those analyses.
Also, I can code, and I was a quant at an energy trading firm, so I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty if necessary.

what kind of "data"? Resources gained? Trade histories? Game lengths? How would it be collected? Are there people who sit around writing-down everything about the game they're currently playing for analysis later? And how do you capture board layout, since it changes game-to-game? Catan is not chess (where recording move histories is fairly common - even requierd in tournaments).

I know you can record a play on Board Game Geek But I canseem to find where to access them. If someone knows how to get stats out of that site, please post an answer!

I forget the source, but my recollection is that the seat win breakdowns were something like second seat, 27%; first seat, 26%; fourth seat, 24%; third seat, 23%.

I have a couple of friends who used to play a lot of settlers online.  Apparently there was once a site that had a lot of settlers data, but it went down.  You can see some of the archived data at the settlers 3d web.archive.org page.
There is now a forum in its place.  Maybe some of the posters there have a backup of the data?

Alas, it appears the last straw for the site was a crash that wiped out all the data.

There are a few problems with finding data. The first is finding any data. I would recommending emailing/contacting sites that offer Catan or Catan-esque games for play to see if they keep records of games played. I found a short list of potential sites with a little searching via Google. (Do note that I have not verified any of those sites.)
The second problem is that even after you find the data it isn't likely to be what you need. Catan has a lot of information being passed around. The more details you can give someone about the data you need the more likely they will be able to find it for you. These details include what information you need (board layouts, resources gained/traded, positions of the robber) and the format you want the data (text logs of a server, CSV, XML.)
It is also possible someone else has already done the analysis. What problem are you specifically trying to solve/analyze?

Yeah, I see now that my post wasn't too specific. Hope my changes help.

Awesome. The clarifications totally help. :)

While the World Boardgaming Championships have Puerto Rico data posted online, I couldn't find the same stats for Settlers, BUT I think you could get ahold of the gamemaster and he probably has them.  Settlers link here.

Thanks! Poking in to WBC, I found a detailed account of the Puerto Rico finals here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/568641/2010-wbc-puerto-rico-tournament-final-game-replay

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Citadels: Does the crown switch hands if the king is killed?
In Citadels, Ann has the crown and Bill chooses the king. The assassin kills the king. Who keeps the crown at the end of the turn?

The King gets the crown when his character is revealed whether he is alive at that point or not.
Otherwise the king would be exceptionally weak IMHO as whomever had the crown could continually pick the assassin, assassinate the king, keep the crown, and first pick the assassin again. You can argue that they should be assassinating other characters besides the king, but seeing as there are fewer yellow districts than any other color the King needs all the help he can get...

I am not sure it would be so bad >2p.  Be King, take Assassin, kill King will get dominated by someone with free reign over Merchant.

@RobRenaud True, maybe the still-crowned assassin would be wiser to pick a better target or choose a better character, but it still makes the King more of a last-pick as it doesn't even guarantee first pick later on. I do love it when I get to snag the architect and merchant while other players are busy fighting over the king, and making sure you get the crown regardless of assassination makes up for his otherwise lack of usefulness.

The crown goes to the player that chose the King role card at the end of the round.
Fantasy Flight Rule book (page 14).

4) King
... If you are murdered, you skip your turn like any other character. Nevertheless, after the last player has played his turn, when it becomes known that you had the murdered King’s character card, you take the Crown (as the King’s heir).


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Calculating luck as a factor in board games?
I´m hooked on Carcassonne but feel that after you learned the basic tactics it is mostly a game of luck. This has me wondering, when designing board games how would one go about calculating the luck factor? Are there any known good methods?

There isn't a whole lot of luck in Carcassonne.  That, or I'm incredibly lucky.  I played the xbox version for several months and I was able to maintain over a 8 to 1 win/loss ratio.  Some folks manage even better.

I´m just saying there is rarely more than one optimal way to play your turn making your luck with the tiles kind of important at least when meeting equally skilled opponents. Maybe not for the when and where you should take fields but for most of the game.

"after you've learned the basic tactics it is mostly a game of luck" is false.  "rarely more than one optimal way to play your turn" is less so, but you might as well say that there is only one correct move for each position in chess (there is, but good luck finding it).  To me, the first sentence of your question is inflammatory and perhaps not even needed to ask your question.

@Pat, drawing the right tile is a huge random factor in Carcassonne.  Of course you do your best to plan for it and mitigate it, but sometimes you just aren't going to get the tiles you need, and others will.  Carcassonne is a good example of a game that takes skill, but still has a high luck factor, opposed to a game like Puerto Rico that has a small luck factor.

@Lance for me, more luck means a higher chance of a lower quality opponent winning the game.  In my experience, this just isn't the case with Carcassonne.  This sounds like ideal fodder for it's own question rather than thread-jacking the OP any further though!

@Pat, I was just trying to point out that Carcassonne was a good example of what he was trying to measure.

I agree with Pat: I don't think there's a whole lot of luck in Carcassonne.  Yes, there's a major element of adapting to the tiles you draw, and if you draw nothing but road tiles forever you are unlikely to do well, but in the overwhelming majority of games the luck factor will average out between the players, and skill will determine who gets the upper hand.  Carcassonne has no more luck in it than any other game involving dice or random draws from a deck, IMO.

Rob's answer on using a large population database to evaluate the roll of luck is absolutely the way to go--assuming this data is available. But the question also seems interested in how to evaluate the roll of luck during game design, when no such data is available. In this context, the question is about how to model or simulate a game to test the mechanics. The answer depends on the type of game being evaluated.
Trial and Error
The least satisfying method because it's so slow. Basically this means play testing to see if something rewards luck too much (based on the designers desire for luck/skill balance). Unfortunately since we're talking about luck you might have to play a lot to get a good feel for the balance. Basically you're generating Rob's database yourself. :(
Statistical analysis
This is more appropriate for modeling portions of games that involve dice--or a similar randomization mechanism. In a game like Arkham Horror (or even Risk) it's easy to test out individual battles (or write a computer program to do it) and quantify the impact of a change to the rules. This might be useful for making sure a custom Arkham character isn't too weak or too powerful, or if you were experimenting with a different Risk combat engine.
The easiest to implement computer-based method is Monte Carlo simulation: use a random number generator to simulate a single battle, then re-seed the generator and run it again; repeat tons of time and calculate statistics on the results. Such tools exist for games like Axis and Allies, but if you were savvy you could code one up yourself.
Situational analysis
I think I just made this term up, but it's supposed to explain looking at a certain game situation and determining to what extent luck could influence the outcome--usually by bounding the best and worst case outcomes and seeing how large the variance is. Similarly, you can evaluate the extent to which the player can tailor their game play to insulate themselves from risk. Games that enable or encourage conservative play and that ultimately reward the more skilled player can greatly reduce the influence of luck.
For example, in a game of Axis and Allies where multiple aircraft are being shot at by an AA gun, the swing between best- and worst-case outcomes is huge: its varies from total annihilation to no damage. Obviously in this case luck can play a huge factor. That said, an experienced player over-matched verses their opponent probably shouldn't use aircraft to attack territories defended with AA guns. They know if they wait it out they'll win eventually and shouldn't take the risk of letting the dice even the playing field.

A reasonable empirical measure of luck is the probability that the best player can beat a good player in a given game.  So if you can get data about a large player population (I have done this with Race for the Galaxy), you can get an implicit measure by looking at the Elo rating difference at various skill percentiles.
On the other hand, this only tells you about the amount of luck in the game as a whole, not in a particular game.

Thanks! That was exactly the kind of answer I was looking for.

It would depend on the game.  Certainly for games that involve rolling dice, the probability of certain events happening can be easily calculated.  For games where dice are thrown or cards or drawn, there are some games where some outcomes can really change the flow of the game.  There are also games where random events actually have minimal affect on the outcome of the game.
Monopoly has a strong aspect of how luck factors into the game.  Where you pieces land, makes or breaks the game for you.  In Settlers of Catan, luck exists, but good players do their best to maximize their odds so the luck of the dice is less of a factor for them.  Chess, is completely a game of skill, there is no random factors are all.
For games that combine luck and skill, experienced players make moves that are likely to benefit them the most.  Thus, their skill helps them depend less on luck to win.  That doesn't mean bad luck still can't keep them from winning.  You have to analyze how randomness created by dice or card drawing helps or hinders players when designing the game in order to determine how much luck affects the game.
There are books on the subject of game design you can look into and an entire course on the subject matter at one university.
Some books I've seen on the subject are:

The Art of Game Design: A Deck of Lenses
Challenges for Game Designers
A Theory of Fun for Game Design

Back to the root of your question, one way I've found to diminish the role of luck in Carcassonne is to have all players draw a "hand" of tiles (3 to 5 seems to work well), and then on each turn you draw a tile and then play any tile from your hand. When there are no more tiles to draw at the end of the game, you just play one of the tiles from your hand until everyone has played all of their tiles.
Luck will still play a part, but this gives the players a little more control over which tile they play at a given time.
Some other variants that affect the luck factor in Carcassonne are to deal out all of the tiles at the beginning of the game, play with the remaining tiles face up so you can choose exactly the tile you want as long as it's still available, or begin the game with a "draft" where you pick the tiles you want to have during the game.


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Dominion - Saboteur use
Dominion is designed to take 20-30 minutes, which is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much.  However, I find that the card Saboteur causes the game to take much longer if more than 1 or two are purchased (which they almost always are) simply because it's nothing more than reverse progression.
All the other attack cards have at least some benefit to you, this just seems to be reverse progress, with no upside to the player.  The only exception to this would be Sea Hag, however Sea Hag has a much smaller (and much less aggravating) effect on the flow of the game.
Besides "it's a good attack", are there any reasons to actually use Saboteur?

In general, ANY attacks will cause the game to take quite a bit longer since people can't just build their deck into a sleek treasure-producing machine.

Saboteur does not allow the attacker to choose the replacement card.  The victim trashes the first 3 cost card he reveals from his deck, and at his discretion he may replace it with a cheaper card according to the instructions.
As an attack, it is valuable in that is slows down everyone else, even if it doesn't give the attacker an immediate advantage.  This can be crippling to the victims in the early game, when everyone's still working on building up the value of their hands and only have a few vulnerable cards.  If you're not limited to Intrigue stacks, you can use it with King's Court or Throne Room.  If you have actions to spare, you can also use it with Bridge to target higher value cards.
And if you're lucky, you might just end up trashing a few Provinces in the late game.
Given the cost of the card, and the fact that it's a terminal action, choosing it over other actions or attacks would be very dependent on what's on the table and what everyone else is loading into their own decks.
Sometimes the best defense is still a good offense.

I disagree strongly with aramis and goldPseudo's answers. Using the data from Isotropic, we can see that in all the games played on the site, people who bought 4 fewer Saboteurs than their opponent increased their win rate by a factor of 1.5. In fact, this graph suggests that the only worse attack card is Thief, and that even buying a single Saboteur hurts your odds of winning relative to someone who doesn't.
In my play group, I decided not to buy them at all, and I typically won when they were available. We've since decided that it's not a fun card, so now we don't play with it.
To quote the Dominion Strategy Blog, "The best counter to Saboteur is probably not getting one."

We've basically banned it also, and no longer use it as well.  But this is why I asked the question to begin with =)

On a side note, Hinterlands introduces a better version of Thief for the same price named Noble Brigand.  Likely due to how terrible Thief ends up being in practice.

@Powerlord While I agree that Noble Brigand is mostly a "fixed version" of Thief, I've played a few games with a lot of alternate treasure cards (e.g. Horde, Harem, Fool's Gold) where I would have much preferred to have a Thief. Those situations are few and far between, but Thief does have his place.

I dislike Saboteur because it makes the game less fun; it torpedoes the "building" aspect of deck-building, and my face-to-face group won't use it for that reason.
However, contrary to Isotropic's stats (which I believe are heavily biased towards 2-player games -- please correct me if I'm wrong), I've found that in a 3-4 player game, ignoring Saboteur only works if everybody else at the table does, too.  If two players get Saboteurs, they can wind up shredding cards faster than you replace them -- and unless Lighthouse or Moat are available, the only good response is to wade into the fray with a Saboteur of your own and make sure they're just as screwed as you are.  Which causes the game to degenerate into a Copper- and Estate-based slap fight.
If that's your idea of a fun game, go for it.  Just leave me out of it.  ;-)

I am very skeptical that the effectiveness of saboteur increases with the number of players.  I've gotten into the argument before on BGG here, http://boardgamegeek.com/article/6879886#6879886

@Rob Renaud:  I'm not skeptical, though I will concede that I may be overly influenced by a small sample size.  On Isotropic, when I'm normally doing 2P games, I find Saboteur's rep as a useless trap to be well-earned.  But the three or four times it came up in my face-to-face group's four player games, it DOMINATED.  Every time.  Whoever had the last Saboteur standing won because nobody else could assemble a useful deck.

@RobRenaud: I was going to add to this here, but decided to just make multiplayer Saboteur a question of it's own.

To optimize Saboteur, you need to buy them up as fast as possible, so that one player has more than anyone else, and preferably than everyone else together.
If everyone grabs a couple, it just slows things down.
If one guy has most of them, it still slows things down, but also means he is going to be hurting others more than they hurt him. And it's an empty stack.


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What would be a good set of topics for a quiz game?
Suppose you wanted to design a quiz game in which knowledge questions are asked. What would be a good set of topics to subdivide all of human knowledge into?
Try to avoid bias towards academic or pop-culture topics; try to cover everything.
Also try to limit yourself to a reasonable number, let’s say around 20 topics.

Obviously this question has no correct answer, as it's completely subjective, but if you're just looking for an idea, I'd suggest making your categorical break-down theme based.
If you compare other popular quiz games, say Classic Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy, the first is trying to cater to being a family game that everyone can play, so it makes its categorical breakdown along typical areas of interest for different types of people Arts people, Sports people, Science people, etc.   Jeopardy prides itself on cleverness and wordplay, so its categories reflect that.
Keep in mind that the act of categorization isn't sorting things into existing buckets base don obvious differences, it's about creating a differentiating metric and categorizing things based on that metric.  For example, if you restrict your set of things to visible objects, you have an infinite set of metrics like color, weight, size, density, use, origin, lifespan, etc.  One you choose a metric there's often a continuum within that metric which you must create arbitrary points.  For example, you take color and break it into Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet.  Those categories now artificially group your world.  Of course, you could just as easily have chosen lifespan and grouped thing into "fleeting", "temporary", "normal", "durable", and "indestructible".  It's really unbounded.
So, what's your theme?  Is this about energy aliens, looking at a human world and trying to figure things out in terms that make sense to them?  Maybe the categories are "hairy" and "smooth".  With those terms in which category would you place "Key" and "Shoe" into?  Part of the fun is seeing how the category informs the question's answer.
One of the fun things about many board and card games with themes is doing just this trick.  For example, Magic the Gathering needs to thematically sort every spell and creature into a color, and does this quite well.

Try using existing classification systems like the Dewey Decimal system. The 10 main classes are not all useful for Trivia, but digging through the subclasses may provide a good starting point. Wikipedia also has categories for Knowledge representation and Classification systems.

Although the question states "Try to avoid bias towards academic or pop-culture topics" I would use academic categorisation.  There are a number of reasons why academic subjects make a good categorisation.
Firstly everyone is familiar with the bounds of the topics.  Someone choosing to receive a question from a particular category has some level of confidence that their interpretation of "History" or "Science", will be the same as the question setter's.
Secondly each academic subject contains a large amount of information - large enough that it can be studied for many years, and still not be completely learnt.  Academic subjects are also broad - two professors in the same department may be ill-suited to review each others research.
Finally the definition of academic subjects has come about naturally by people categorising knowledge.  They probably don't cover "all of human knowledge" (unless you treat them very loosely), but they give it a good go.

The reason I added that sentence was because I initially used academic subjects, but the effect of that was that some common topics, such as “pop culture”, “home improvement”, etc. weren’t covered simply because they are not academic disciplines.

Pop culture is a very broad category and questions could come under the subject headings such as "media", "music" or "art.  Home improvement sounds like what I did in CDT (craft, design and technology) lessons.


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In a two-player Texas Hold'Em poker hand with blinds, which player posts the small blind?
In a small-blind/big-blind poker game (I'm thinking of Texas Hold 'em, but I guess this question applies to any similarly structured poker game), how does the structure change when the games gets to the final two players?
So, for four+ players, it's:
[D] [SB] [BB] [UTG]* (pre-flop)
For three players, it's:
[D/UTG] [SB] [BB]
So, for two players, is it:
[D/BB] [SB/UTG]
*
[D] = Dealer
[SB]=Small Blind
[BB]=Big Blind
[UTG] = Under The Gun, i.e. first to act.

Here is another question that asks a similar question: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/1617/texas-holdem-heads-up-blind-structure

Your question seems ambiguous.

Is the dealer actually a player, or someone separate?
Is the dealer  fixed at one person, or does deal rotate?

No. Under practically all rules, the dealer posts the small blind and is first to act preflop. After the flop, the other player acts first.
Other rules have occasionally been implemented -- I believe Party Poker used to have this backwards preflop -- but this is almost universal. It is generally thought to lead to a better game with more action, as the small blind has a higher incentive to complete or raise when he has the benefit of acting last postflop.

What your post describes, with the dealer posting the big blind, covers how I have always seen this scenario played, between various casinos in Biloxi, MS, USA and local games in Nashville TN and Atlanta GA.


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Is Avalon worth getting if I already own The Resistance
I have a copy of the resistance which my group of friends really enjoys. I noticed that there's a game called Avalon in my local games store and am not sure if it is the same game re-skinned, or if it brings something new. Is there any value in buying Avalon?

There are several new mechanics brought in the game with Avalon. The major ones play around two new characters Merlin and The Assassin. Merlin allows the good side to have some knowledge of who is good/evil but on the flip side The Assassin allows for the evil side to turn a loss into a victory by figuring out who is Merlin. In addition to those two there are some characters that add some other flair into the game such as a good character who knows who Merlin is with the flip side of an evil character to pretends to be Merlin and a evil character who is unknown to the rest of his team. There are some other characters that where kick starter specific and not sure if you can still get them or not but are worth getting.
Overall I think the changes to Avalon add a lot to the game and make it a little more interesting then the basic game of resistance.

I know it's a little late and the expansions may not have existed when you posted this, but there are two expansions to Resistance now that provide all of this and then some:  Hostile Intent and Hidden Agenda (just with the Dystopian Universe feel as opposed to Arthurian Legend feel).
For anyone else that already has Resistance, I would recommend this route as you will pay a little more price-wise and will get more than what is described above in the way of optional mechanics to the game.  Also, in addition, you will have a use for your current game as opposed to purchasing Avalon which will leave your old Resistance sitting on a shelf indefinitely.

I own both, and we play The Resistance: Avalon a lot more than we play The Resistance now.  There are so many more points of intrigue and styles of play with Merlin and the Assassin.  Merlin knows a LOT of information, but Merlin also has to be careful about how much information is revealed.  Otherwise the Assassin will just take out Merlin at the end and the spies (it's a different name in Avalon but still the same thing) still win.
However, in addition to Merlin and the Assassin, there are additional characters cards such as Mordred - who is evil and unknown to Merlin.  There is Oberon, who is evil yet unknown to other spies/evil players.  There is Percival, who is good and also knows who Merlin is - yet does not know who the evil players are.  You could also use Morgana, who would appear as Merlin to Percival, so it makes it more difficult for Percival to figure out who is telling the truth.  I'm pretty sure all of these character cards are in the base game, although I own the Kickstarter edition that also comes with the Lancelot promotional cards where he can flip between good or evil depending on what cards are revealed in an event deck.
The thing I really enjoy with Avalon is that you can make it as simple or as complex as you want.  Just adding Merlin and the Assassin is great.  We love to mix in Mordred and Percival.  The only difficulty is making sure you go through the script properly to make sure the proper information is revealed between the players before the round starts.
While I do recommend purchasing Avalon, there's nothing stopping you from creating your own character cards with the same Avalon abilities and replace the ones in The Resistance.  Everything else with the game is still the same.  If you have the first edition of The Resistance with the little pocket size box, I do recommend picking up Avalon to get the better board components (the voting tiles do wear down quickly, so I still use sleeved cards for the yes/no votes).

Though I have not played it yet, I have been told it has a new mechanic.
Merlin is introduced and works in this way: He knows who the minions are and can introduce this knowledge into the game. It is important that he is subtle because if the minions can discover who he is they can win.
Here is a really great review.


text:
I have an idea for a card game. How can I best start testing it?
I've been playing around with an idea for a card game for some time, and I think I've finally got the idea fairly well in place. How can I best start testing it out to refine it?

Is this a question about the card game design lifecycle or about prototyping card game (materials, etc.)?

I don't want the whole cycle per say, just the "I have a game planned" to start testing it.

There are different stages to testing.
You need to make sure the core idea and gameplay is workable.  You can do some of this by playing through a few games with just you playing for each other player.
Then you need to start creating the game.  This will be an iterative process.  You get the game together, and draft some instructions, and get some friends round to play it.
Take many notes!  See how they understand the instructions; make notes of any oddities during play; see if they understand the game in the way you intend.
Make changes, and do this again.  Do this a few times.
Eventually you'll get a game that's ready for beta testing with people who don't know you; maybe as a print and play download. Make sure people know it's a beta test, and make sure they have some good method for reporting problems they have and getting help.
You'll also want to think about asking people to try to break the game; trying to use weird strategies to win or "king making" or rushing or such.

You can also build prototypes in pretty much any office suite or desktop publishing software.  Create something bare-bones but functional, print on card stock and cut.  You don't need to get fancy with it at this stage.

If you think you'll have to frequently change cards you could use card sleeves instead of glue/tape. Simply print out a new version and swap. You'll probably have to add some kind of real card to the sleeve to give it stability.
As for the actual testing, just ask people to try it out with you and tell you what they think. You'll probably want to have a core group of testers that play more frequently so they can examine advanced strategies.
Once you're confident in your game you should have some blind playtesting: See how people handle the game with nothing more than the cards and the rulebook.

Buy normal playing cards (maybe more than one deck if you have a lot of cards in your game), print your special cards on normal paper (or write something on pieces of paper) and simply tape/glue them on the cards you bought. They will all look the same from the back and won't require you to make them on expensive paper.
Note: when you finally make the game, thing about cuttong the corners of the cards in rounded shape to avoid them to be destroyed too easely.

One Solution would be to start with index cards. No need to look fancy until you are sure you are happy with what you have got. (this could depend on the kind of card game. Like if you are using a game that can use standard playing cards then go with the obvious, however if you are making a trading card game or something then this solution could work for you.)
Once you have your cards and whatever extra stuff such as dice and what not that you need then gather up a few people and give them a rough overview of your game. Once you pique their interests bring them to a place where they can play, give them a set of rules. It's important that you don't play with them while they test it.
Instead of playing, keep a notebook with you and note down different details about how the players interact with your game. What makes them frustrated?, do they understand the rules?, are they enjoying themselves?, do they quit?, if so why?, and what not.
Also make the players feel that they can stop playing at any time so that they don't continue to play just out of respect for you, or out of the feeling of being trapped.
As you take notes also keep in mind the personalty of those you have playing. Are they your intended audience for your game? If so are you appealing to your audience? Also if they are not your intended audience do they find interest in your game? If so how can you maybe expand play to include their style and maybe broaden your market?
After you get these notes down be sure to look over your game and make revisions where necessary. Once revisions are made try to have a play test with the same players and see if you have improved the experience at all. Try the game with different people, and see what comes out of it.

You can purchase blank faced playing cards that are perfect for prototyping. Just write whatever text you need on the face of the card and start playing. It's a good idea to keep extras on hand for use as you need to add/remove/change the cards in your deck.
I could list a few sources, but your best bet is to check out Google Products to see what fits your needs the best.


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What could 1NT mean opposite a partner's takeout double?
Here, for reference, is the entire hand that inspired the question. With only us vulnerable, left hand opponent bid one spade, partner doubled for takeout, right hand opponent passed, and I have (s)943 (h) A52 (d) AQJ (c)8732.
Normally, a bid of 1NT opposite an opening bid (and partner's takeout double suggests this range) would mean a balanced hand, 6-9 points. If the opponents have bid meanwhile, it would also suggest a stopper in opponents' suit.
The columnist (Frank Stewart) suggested a "craven" bid of 2 clubs. I disagree because that could mean (c)8732 with no honors, and seriously mislead partner into thinking that the hand belongs to the opponents when my 11 points means that the balance is in our favor.
My preference is to bid 1NT to alert partner to the fact that I have "real" strength. I assume that since I'm not making a "forced" suit bid, that it suggests the usual 6-9 points, not a bust. I don't have a stopper in the opponents' suit, but I do have a balanced "threesome," and two points over the presumed nine.
Is my 1NT response better than the columnist's suggested response? (With the queen of spades, I'd go to 2NT, but I don't have that.) Is there an even better response? I might cue bid two spades with a singleton or void in spades, but I don't have that either.

In light of this hand, and thus also this answer, being revisited under a different question: I rescind the above as substantially too pessimistic. It's certain both that aces are undervalued in suit contracts by Worth Point Count, and that the only card in the hand not worth it's par value is the diamond jack. The hand is ugly, but it's worth only drops from a maximum jump response to a minimum jump response. Bid 3 clubs and give partner a chance at making the right follow-up call.

The following conclusion is rescinded, though some of the points made remain valid:
Absolutely not - just bid 2C (in tempo so as to not present partner with an ethical problem).
The hand you are attempting to protect against, a balanced 12-14 count, is explicitly denied by partner's take-out double. If partner has that range then a singleton small Spade is almost guaranteed; a doubleton at most absolutely guaranteed.
Likewise partner does not have a 15-18 point hand with a spade stopper, as that hand has been denied by the failure to overcall 1NT.
Further, the 4333 distribution with an empty 4-card suit is deadly. This hand could easily play a two or more full points weaker than its alleged 11 HCP if partner does not have at least 4 diamonds.
Since there is no right call to make with this hand, as all possibilities and the hand itself have significant flaws, follow the Golden Rule: Never overbid a bad hand. Just bid a craven 2C as recommended. Don't make partner guess more than absolutely necessary. Just bid a quiet 3 clubs and decline any future invitations.

In light of this hand, and thus also this answer, being revisited under a different question: I rescind the above as substantially too pessimistic. It's certain both that aces are undervalued in suit contracts by Worth Point Count, and that the only card in the hand not worth it's par value is the diamond jack. The hand is ugly, but it's worth only drops from a maximum jump responne to a minimum jump response. Bid 3 clubs and give partner a chance at making the right follow-up call.

If you switched my spade and diamond holdings so that I have AQJ of spades, would it then be OK to bid 1NT? Because I would have the suit double-stopped opposite partner's presumed singleton.

@TomAu: Either that or 2NT - the hand is right on the cusp. A double stopper is a real plus, the 4333 distribution a minus. Here's a case of bidding the opponents: Bid 2NT against decidedly weak opponents or vulnerable playing IMPS; otherwise bid 1NT.

Would I still have a 1NT bid with AQJ in spades, (6-9 points) and no heart ace or other side honor?

@TomAu: No, because you both lack the required 8 HCP and have a distinct minus value in the 4333 distribution. Just bid 2C in tempo again. In competition, all (natural) Notrump bids should be pure, expressing an accurate and precise description of the hand.

I think I understand now. First, 8 HCPs (not 6-7) is the normal threshold for a "free" bid opposite a takeout double. Second, my earlier hand with 11 hcps wasn't worth "eight" with the 4-3-3-3 distribution and no stopper in the opponent's suit. So treat it like "seven" and "cravenly" bid 2 clubs.

@TomAu: Don't pass! That shows a hand of at least 8 HCP with a long strong holding in opponents' suit that intends to draw trumps and use those entries to lead through Declarer to partner's hand.

Actually, there may be another rationale for the "craven" two club bid. My hand is good for defense (at least opposite partner's presumed x Kxxx Kxxx AQxx). So "two clubs" functions like a "trap pass" to encourage the opponents to get too high, where we can beat them. It's weak for offense so I lose little by "not encouraging" partner.

Your proposed solution of bidding 1NT was wrong. That would have been descriptive of your shape, but would have misled partner into thinking that you have a stopper in spades when you don't, and when partner clearly doesn't, by virtue of his takeout double.
But you are right to worry about a 2 club bid being "craven." Partner will usually have at least 12-13 high card points. You have a nominal 11 that is worth more like nine (not seven). Even so, you and partner have the majority of points.
With a two club bid, partner will put you on 5-6 high card points and fear "zero,;" and in any case wrongly believe that the opponents have the balance of power. You know better and need to advertise this fact.
Therefore you should jump to three clubs. If one partnership belongs at the three level, it is probably yours and not the other one. If the other side gets to three spades, partner may have the wherewithal (a good hand with one or two spades) to double them.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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When should I lead a trump?
In which situations should my opening lead be a trump?
For example, when the opponents have a 4-4 fit, or when I have a singleton etc.?

Whether you should lead a trump depends on the sort of defense you'll want to execute on the hand. Broadly speaking, there are five lines of defense:

A forcing defense (you force declarer to ruff, making them run out of trumps while the defense still has them). This is a reasonable approach when you or partner hold four trumps, declarer is in a 4-3 fit, or declarer is known to have shortness. Leading a trump here is usually fatal.
A ruffing defense (you want to ruff declarer's winners in a side suit). This is a reasonable approach when you or partner are short in a side suit held by opponents. Usually you'll lead a singleton, or an ace in a suit partner holds a singleton in. Leading a trump is usually fatal.
An active defense (you try to take your side-suit winners before declarer can establish a side suit). Against a trump contract, you may take this approach when dummy has shown a long, strong suit, when opponents have shown extras and tried for (or bid) slam, or when you can see that declarer's second suit is breaking. Leading a trump is usually fatal.
A passive defense (you try to make leads that don't give away tricks). Against a trump contract, you may take this approach when you know or suspect that your tricks are safe, as long as you don't give declarer extra opportunities to finesse, create entries in dummy, etc. Leading a trump here is often safe.
Cutting down ruffs (you try to prevent declarer from ruffing tricks in a side suit). This is often right when the auction indicates opponents are in a misfit, or when you have good cards in trumps, or when dummy has shown shortness in a side suit. Leading a trump here is often required.

Form of scoring matters.  A passive defense that keeps declarer from taking an overtrick is much more attractive at matchpoints (or board-a-match), while taking a gamble that partner has the right high cards or distribution for a ruffing or active defense to set the contract is more attractive at some form of IMP scoring (or rubber).

Basically, the time to lead trumps is when you have reason to suspect that your opponents bid their contract on trumps and "distribution," rather than high card points. This is particularly true when your opponents have "sacrificed" to keep your side out of a game.
Another example is when you have 15 points, and your opponents bid three suits, only one of which fit. You can suspect that declarer and dummy are short in each other's side suit, and declarer plans a cross ruff. You lead trumps 1) to make sure that your opponents have to play two trumps on every trick and 2) to protect your high cards, especially tenace holdings like KJxx that you don't want to lead from.
Another example is when an opponent bids a suit, one partner's (takeout) double shows strength in the remaining three suits, and the other passes for penalty with something like AKxxx or QJTxx of declarer's suit.
In essence, you want to "draw" trumps so that your side's high cards will prevail.


text:
Are the cards in these videos cards from a real TCG, or just props?
The video game Inscryption has a few segments where in-game videos depicting a fictional Youtuber opening card packs of what are supposed to be fictional card games are played. In these videos, the front faces of a few cards are displayed, and I'm not certain, but based on the overall design of the cards, they seem to be very similar to Magic: the Gathering cards.
Are the cards used for filming these video segments actual cards for a real TCG such as Magic: the Gathering, or are they just props that were designed and printed off for the filming of these videos? If they are real cards, is it possible to identify what cards they are, based off of what can be seen of their artwork?
The person in the video opens packs from "Catch Monsters", and mentions the card named "Transcendog", "Birchkin", and "Bandog".
He then opens another pack called "Inscryption" and mentions cards named "Mantis God" and "Blue Mage".
Only one card is shown close up, but very little actual detail can be seen:

Good question, I'm going to edit some of the card names and a screenshot from the video into your question so there is a bit more to go on.

My guess, considering Inscryption is a video game where you build decks and play a card game to defeat your opponent, is that these are all created for the in-game video. But that's a guess, not an answer.

Fictional / just props.
The boosters have no barcodes anywhere, so they're definitely fake. The cards themselves also look fake: overly simplistic art and scant text.
The clincher is that Google cannot find any record of the one card shown in close up (whose art is the exception to the simplistic style shown on the others; probably because it was made for close-ups).
FWIW: There's enough detail over the series of frames that card text can be extracted. It is:

SKELETON
Creature - Undead
Brittle:
After attacking, Skeleton perishes.

(No attack/defense values show on card).
The handwritten coordinates are:

49.301911 N
123.14154 W

(although that last digit crosses the borderline of the card so is hard to read, it might be a 9 or a 7 instead of a 4)


text:
Are these MTG cards from Cardmarket fake?
I recently bought cards from cardmarket and I suspect that some of them might be fake. The two fact that make me suspect are the unusual corners and the less rigid, more paper-like touching they have (although it is not paper at all).
I contacted the seller and he assured me that they are not fake, that all of his cards have been opened from Magic official products. He has more of 55K sells in his profile and all of his reviews are 100% Very Good. Moreover, all the cards that I bought cost between 0.02€ and 0.10€.
The seller also says that Magic has many manufacturers, so it is normal that all cards are different from each other.
Is this true? What should I do or believe?
I attach 3 image with link to drive (they are too big to attach them directly) from Spit Flame and Graf Rats, two from a bunch of the set I received which I suspect they might not be real. Behind them is a card from my collection that I know it is real for comparing them.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n1FHE27JS8chvUrw6G2Gewg-ZKTRAofo/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L-qhaCKDOQ8No_EDWJWlTl6a7QlBsSrC/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TcJm8ISVCbQHu0Y7Yi8k8xpMlNJswR3X/view?usp=sharing

It's hard to say from de images. Did you by them in a european country or in the USA? I know paper can feel different according to the printing house / continent.

@sinsedrix has to be Europe, Cardmarket operates out of Germany and as far as I know won't even ship to North America

Cards printed in North America tend to smell of chemicals, have a rougher feeling and sometimes different colours than those printed in Belgium(?) or Japan. Quality also differs between printruns/editions.

I don't think the pics you've provided give us enough information to determine whether those cards are genuine, but I do have a few thoughts:

It seems unlikely that anyone would go through the trouble to counterfeit penny commons, since printing them would be more expensive than the real thing.
Print variation is a real thing, even on genuine cards
Print errors are also a thing (super dark or light, missing colors, weird textures, miscut corners)

Those lead me to think they are probably genuine cards, with print variation and/or print errors.
If you want to be absolutely sure, use a jeweler's loupe or microscope to look at the precise color detail of the green dot on the card back (do a search for "mtg green dot test" to see examples of real and fake green dots).
Do not rely on the "light test" (shining light through the cards) or the "bend test" (or, God forbid, the "tear test"), those are not considered reliable.


text:
Can you chose fewer targets than a spell permits?
Say I have a spell like Victimize that says, among other things "choose two target creature cards in your graveyard"...  what if I only have one creature card in my graveyard? Can I still cast the spell? Do I need to have two valid legal targets to actually cast the spell?

Additional note: You can't target the same object twice by a single instance of the word "target".

If you could choose to not target anything, then you could play something like Aether Tradewinds and choose no target you control.

For more precise wording you can choose fewer target than a spell 'permits' (e.g. up to two targets can be 0, 1 or 2) but not fewer than it 'requires' (e.g. two targets can only be 2). There's also the distinction between separate instances of the word target (Decimate can target a single Artifact Enchantment Land Creature four times, but each instance of the word target needs to be valid, while Victimize needs two distinct targets).

No, you can't. You need to specify all targets. It would say "up to two targets" if you could target less. That is also for example the downside of the card Hex.

And to see "up to" in action, see Cruel Revival, which is deliberately worded so that you can kill something without needing a zombie to get back.


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Heroic leader after his unit is eliminated
If the unit with the heroic leader dies but no star is rolled, does the enemy still get one victory medal for the destroyed infantry unit?
Action Cards 8 - Heroic Leader

Yes! Both the infantry unit just eliminated and the Heroic Leader are worth a Victory Medal, as the only meaningful interpretation of the bullet point on the card itself (my emphasis):

When infantry unit with a heroic leader is eliminated, roll two Battle
  dice; if at least 1 star is rolled, leader is lost and counts as a
  Victory Medal; if heroic leader survives, move him to nearest friendly
  infantry unit.

There is no mention of the destroyed infantry unit not counting as a Victory medal, so that must be taken as unchanged from the standard rule. Clearly then the destruction of the heroic leader, either through a star being rolled or through there not being a friendly infantry unit to relocate to, counts as an additional Victory medal.


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Best set of blank cards
Where can I get a good cheap set of blank cards? Amazon sells them, but it is apparently difficult to get a pen to work on them.
In my case I ask because I like bohnanza, but can't tolerate the illustrations. Others may have other uses.

My first thought was to search for stuff related to 1000 Blank White Cards, but it looks like most people play with index cards.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is a shopping question.

I was poking around the other day looking for the same answer. Plaincards.com sells software to design your own cards and blank cards to print your designs on. Seems pretty cool, but it looks like you're limited to standard playing card sizes (i.e. no tiny Arkham cards). Their complete product line appears here. I'm not sure what size cards Bohnanza uses.
I'm in the midst of designing my own game but I need different sized cards (1.5" by 2.5") so their apparent lack of that size is kind of a deal breaker.
DeLano Service is another site that could get cards made. Sounds to be a bit more fancy that what you're looking for, perhaps more like a prototype company that an supplier of blank cards, but perhaps they'd sell blank cards if asked.
(Note: I have no affiliation with either site.)

Although not a particularly cheap solution, you could use a service like Artscow to print off this redesign of Bohnanza:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/239278/bohnanza-redesign-for-the-uppish-and-the-posh

I use blank name cards. I get them from printers or stationers in boxes of 100 for about $1. They're smaller than regular playing cards, and not as durable, but you can also get them in perforated sheets of ten (10) that will go through your printer. You might find other sizes of perforated cards as well.


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When was the Lord Licorice character added to Candy Land?
I recently played a brand new copy of Candy Land with my son and noticed a character named Lord Licorice, who I don't remember from playing the game when I was a child.
The Candy Land Wikipedia article mentions several changes that were made to the game--including character changes--as it was updated through the years, but there's no mention of Lord Licorice.
Am I just completely mis-remembering a canonical character, or was he added some time after the early 1980s?

According to the Candy Land 50th Anniversary Edition Rules:

1985: “The Legend of the Lost Candy Castle” story and characters introduced to game.

I presume, Since Lord Licorice is the antagonist of that story, that he was introduced then.

'They'll never find the hidden King or his Castle,' Lord Licorice says sourly... 'for I have hidden them from sight so that all of Candy Land will be mine!' His heart is as hard as rock candy. Always gloomy, always grim, Lord Licorice lives very much alone, except for the few Bitter Chocolate Bats to keep him company!
'Utter nonsense,' Queen Frostine says of Lord Licorice's evil plan. Peacefully adrift on an Ice Cream Float in an Ice Cream Sea, warm-hearted Frostine thinks the Candy Land Kids will surely find the King. 'And no matter how many times Lord Licorice plots and plans,' she adds, 'Candy Land will sparkle once again.'

EDIT:
I found the History Page on Hasbro's site. It appears that the version labeled "1980s" has Lord Licorice, while the "1970s" version does not. According to the Candy Land wikipedia page, there was a version published in 1978, and another in 1985. I've done some web searches, and "1984 edition" comes up in searches. Perhaps there were different copyright/publishing dates in different countries?
Anyway, I can't find any reference to Lord Licorice on boards for the 1978 or earlier editions…

That timeline meshes perfectly with my not remembering LL, since I was born in 1980 and would have owned and played on a set published at least a year or two prior to 1985.
Do you know if there were any lose a turn spaces in the pre-1985 games? I wonder if they were introduced with the game's first antagonist?

@Adam, the 1984 version had them, and from the looks of things, the older versions had them too.

I suspect this was the one you grew up with, minus a few beads... Ah, that crooked old peanut brittle house...

@Dave DuPlantis According to the Wikipedia page, there was a 1978 edition and a 1985 edition. I've done some web searches and 1984 edition comes up a lot. Perhaps in some countries the copyright was 1984 and in others it was published later as 1985? I don't know enough about the history of Candy Land…

@ghoppe, that's entirely possible. BGG lists copies from 1949, 1955, 1956, 1962, 1965, 1967, 1978, 1984, 1987, 1999, 2002 (Dutch, French), 2005, and 2009 (Brazilian) ... the difference between 1984 and 1985 is curious, given that the history page is in English and thus is presumably referring to the American history of the game. All I know from personal experience is that my grandmother had it for her kids (so '40s, maybe '50s), and we had it (late '60s), but I don't know which editions.

@adam - sounds like fodder for another question :)

@Pat - what does? the question about losing a turn on the unique spaces? If that's what you meant I'll write another one later today and edit this one accordingly.

@AdamWuerl - yep, thats the one.  Having a second candyland question would keep the tag from disappearing in the middle of the night sometime too :)


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Is it possible to position all chess pieces on the board such that all pieces defend at least one piece and attack at least one piece?
Is it possible to position all chess pieces on the board such that all pieces defend at least one piece and attack at least one piece?

When you say "pieces," do you mean just the pieces, or the pawns as well?

I mean the pawns as well. I think doing it that way makes it more interesting and complicated... :P

This reminds me of a computer problem, How do place X (I forgot the number) queens on the board so they don't "attack" each other?

@Tom: Perhaps you're thinking of this one? http://www.math.utah.edu/~alfeld/queens/queens.html

@El'endia: Exactly.

@BlueRaja - since when are pawns not pieces?

@Charles: I'm not sure why, but in chess literature, "pieces" refers to everything but pawns (with "minor-pieces" referring to the bishops and knights).  So for instance, when Nimzovich says "Control the center with pieces", he means don't control it with pawns, as in  traditional theory.  See also this.

@BlueRaja - interesting, I had never seen anything like that.

Yes, and it's not particularly hard to do. Here's one solution.

I found this by placing the pawns first (because they are much more limited in their attack/defence potential), and then adding the pieces one at a time. Using this simple manual approach, it took about 15 minutes to find a solution. As an added constraint, I avoided placing the kings in check.
There are undoubtedly many alternative arrangements that would also work. It would be quite straightforward to write a computer program to search for valid configurations. A simple brute-force backtracking algorithm would probably suffice.

It cannot be done "naturally" in a normal chess game though.
The pawns on columns A and H only have 1 square of influence for attacking/defending, since they are on the edge of the board. To move them further into the board, they would have to capture another piece, and if you do, you don't have all the pieces on the board anymore.


text:
What is the best way to clean dirty cards
I have a few frequently played card games where the cards no longer feel "clean".  They aren't stained or anything, just a bit grimy.  Is there an effective way to clean the cards without damaging the graphics?

I've found that a slightly damp washcloth with a little bit of plain old bar soap on it works just fine -- don't use those goofy hand soaps with the beads or anything fancy in them.
Lightly rub the cloth on the card, dry it off with another washcloth, and let it sit for a few hours.  You definitely want to try this on one card first to make sure that nothing streaks on the card, and only do small batches at a time to make it manageable.
I wouldn't do this to any Magic cards that you find valuable; those should have been in card sleeves in the first place.  It might be safe, but I would hate to be responsible for damage to your Mox or Lotus.

I used to own a hobby game store that sold rare Magic cards, and I can vouch for using a barely damp cloth.  I have no insight on the soap, though.

Another option is to get a razor blade or hobby knife, and carefully scrape the grime off. You want to use a very light touch here to avoid scratching the card. Basically put the whole of the blade in contact w/ the card, just slightly off of vertical, and lightly scrape.
Regardless of what method you use, if the cards are used frequently prevention is the best method, but if you do have success cleaning cards, you'll definitely want to get some sleeves to keep your cards nice and clean.


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What are the chances of going out on the first hand in Rummy?
What are the chances of any particular player being able to go out in the first round of rummy?

For two players the hand size is 7.
For all other numbers the hand size is 5.

Going out requires a that a card is drawn, and that all but one card is played, and the last card is discarded.

I cannot imagine why you ask this. I'm counting but this might take a while... I'm sure Hypergeometric distr could be applied somehow...

@eipipuz To know my risk when I have a set in my hand on the first round.  I'd like to know the chances that my opponent will go out, and those cards in my hand be counted against me.

If that's the case, then the question is different. Because knowing your cards greatly diminished the probabilities. Something like "What's the chance of the other player going out in the first hand if I have a set and these other 4 cards?" If these other 4 cards are well spread, they could potentially break the chance of a straight in the other player. For example a 4 and a 10, leaves only from 5 to 9 as a possible straight.

@eipipuz True, but I wanted to keep it fairly simple.  The numbers indicate that it is very unlikely, which is good enough for me.

ANALYSIS OF RUMMY GAMES: EXPECTED WAITING TIMES AND OPTIMAL STRATEGIES -
calculates similar questions for rummy with 3 and 4 cards.
https://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/research/finkle.pdf

I cannot imagine why you ask this. But anyways, with the rules you just put it's easy to calculate. (Though I have not played with the last card discarded rule.)
You can win from the start with either Three+Straight or 7 Straight or Three+Poker. Now we just add the probabilities. Assuming you play with 4 jokers
Using the Hypergeometric distribution you get.
There are 1,420'494,075 hands... in combinatoric that's C(56, 8). You can take 8 from 56 cards no matter in what order you take them.
One Set (three of a kind) and a Poker requires (C(4, 3) * C(4, 4) * C(4, 0)^12)/C(56, 7). However we have to consider jokers. In the case of 1 in the set, 2, 3, the full set is wildcards, 1 in the poker, 2, 3, the full poker is wild card, plus combinations, 1 and 1, 1, and 2, 2 and 1, 2 and 2, 3 and 1, 1 and 3. We add all of these scenarios. We should avoid counting twice any scenario...

Simple (or 0 jokers in set, 0 in poker): (C(4, 3) * C(4, 4) * C(4, 0)^12) / C(56, 8)
1, 0: (C(4, 2) * C(4, 4) * C(4, 0)^11 * C(4, 1)) / C(56, 8)
2, 0: (C(4, 1) * C(4, 4) * C(4, 0)^11 * C(4, 2)) / C(56, 8) --Ignorable
3, 0: (C(4, 3) * C(4, 4) * C(4, 0)^12) / C(56, 8) --Ignorable
3, 1: (C(4, 3) * C(4, 3) * C(4, 0)^11 * C(4, 1)) / C(56, 8)
3, 2: Not possible, only 4 jokers
2, 2: (C(4, 1) * C(4, 2) * C(4, 0)^11 * C(4, 4)) / C(56, 8) --Ignorable
1, 3: (C(4, 2) * C(4, 1) * C(4, 0)^11 * C(4, 4)) / C(56, 8) --Ignorable
0, 4: (C(4, 3) * C(4, 4) * C(4, 0)^12) / C(56, 8) --Ignorable

Notice that #4 & #9 are the same as #1. So we can ignore them and count #1 thrice.
#2, #3, #7, #8 are the same in different order; let's ignore but #2 and count it 4 times.
C(N, 0) is equal to 1. There's only one way to not take things from N available, right? Same with C(N, N)

3 * C(4, 3) / C(56, 8)
4 * (C(4, 2) * C(4, 1)) / C(56, 8)
(C(4, 3)^2 * C(4, 1)) / C(56, 8)

C(4,3) = C(4, 1) = 4. Taking one or not taking one out of 4 has 4 variants.
That's 3*4 + 4*6*4 + 4^3 = 4*(3+24+16) = 4*(3+40) = 172.
There you have it to win with a Set and a Poker you 172 hands out of C(56,8)... 1.2108463036003863655679098837494271139427315105133402... × 10^-7
For a 7 Straight flush the calculation is the following.
The first card is unimportant. However the second one, there's only one that works. And so on. That's (D equals the number of cards in the deck and N the number of cards in the straight):
1 * 1/(D-1) * 1/(D-2) * ... * 1/(D-[N-1])

However that is only true if the straight had to show up exactly in the order. So we have to multiply times all the ways those N cards could be ordered. That's N!
N! * 1 * 1/(D-1) * 1/(D-2) * ... * 1/(D-[N-1])

If you play a bit with the factors you can get this:
D * N/D * (N-1)/(D-1) * (N-2)/(D-2) * ... * 1/(D-[N-1])

Or
D * 1/D * 2/(D-1) * 3/(D-2) * ... * N/(D-[N-1])

Anyway that's, ignoring the jokers for now:
52 * 1/52 * 2/51 * 3/50 * 4/49 * 5/48 * 6/47 * 7/46
1/2572780
3.8868461353088876623729973025287820956319623131398720... × 10^-7

I have yet to figure a good model for straight flushes with wildcards. But I'm guessing the final answer will be about 1 in a million.

I will edit this as soon as I get more info...

Some notes:  As @tttppp mentions below, you can have a straight of 3 (or is that what you call a "poker?"  I've never heard that term).  Normal rummy is played without wild cards, but if you wanted to include them, instead of treating a 7-straight as "one of any card + six specific cards," treat it as "one of any card + a wild + any five out of six specific cards."  However, even that is still not quite correct, because the straight cannot actually begin with any card - for instance, the straight cannot start on a King.  You need to take that into account when chosing the "any" card.

I've worked out an approximation based on a seven card hand with a standard deck.  I leave it as an exercise to do the same calculations for a five card hand :-)
I think there are four ways of winning the hand:

4 of a kind and 3 of a kind
4 of a kind and 3 straight
3 of a kind and 4 straight
4 straight and 3 straight (this includes a 7 straight hand)

In my approximation I have overcounted the number of winning hands by assuming the 8th card could be any card.  This makes calculations a lot easier, but counts some hands more than once (e.g. two 4 of a kinds).

4 of a kind, 3 of a kind

There are 13 4oKs, and then 48 3oKs for each 4oK.  The remaining card is one of 45 left.
Total = 13*48*45 = 28080

4 of a kind, 3 straight

There are 13 4oKs and then at least 32 straights for each 4oK (some have more).  Counting them all gives 440 posibilities.  The remaining card is one of 45 cards.
Total = 440*45 = 19800

3 of a kind, 4 straight

For each 3oK there is an untouched suit with 10 straights in it.  The other three suits have different numbers of straights depending on the rank of the 3oK.  Counting them gives 769, and the last card is again one of 45.
Total = 769*45 = 34605

4 straight, 3 straight

If the straights are in different suits then there are 1320 combinations.  If they are in the same suit then there are 184 combinations.  The last card is again one of 45 cards.
Total = (1320+184)*45 = 67680

There are 52C8 possible hands which works out as 752,538,150 possibilities.
So finally a slight overestimate on the probability is:
(28080+19800+34605+67680)/752,538,150 ~ 1/5,000

I thought the rules of rummy didn't allow for straights with less than 4 cards. And I think you need to consider jokers.

When I search for rummy rules on Google I get the following page: http://www.pagat.com/rummy/rummy.html

Also the Wikipedia page (currently!) suggests that Basic Rummy is played with straights of three cards and without jokers.  It does also say that rummy can be played with a different composition of deck though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rummy

52C8 = 752,538,150.  not 30,342,338,208,000

Thanks @Cohensius - 9 years of being wrong on the internet feels embarrassing :-|

Well there are only 52 C 8 ≈ 750 million different 8-card hands (eight because of the one you pick up at the start of your turn).  That shouldn't take too long to brute force.
I wrote a quick C# program that does just that.  It runs in under 10 minutes on my PC (faster, by the way, than the equivalent non-parallel program in C).
According to it, there are exactly 68,260 different starting hands that go out immediately.  That means the chances are exactly
68260/752538150 ≈ 9.07 x 10-5, or about 1 in 11,025.

For six cards (5 + first draw) it gives
11987/20358520 ≈ 5.89 x 10-4, or about 1 in 1,698
Thus, if you are the first player, and playing with N total people (in a game with a starting-hand of 5), the chances of someone going out before your next turn are:
1 - (1 - 11987/20358520)N-1
Three total players:  1 in 849
Four total players: 1 in 566
Five total players:  1 in 425
Six total players:  1 in 340

Great answer however the link is broken, can you fix it?


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Protecting the surface of your board games...
Is there something anyone knows of that you can apply to the surface of a board game to protect it against wear so that it lasts longer?

I found this on a BoardGameGeek thread:

You can try this...clear wallpaper, avaliable at any home improvement store and even Walmart, if you're lucky enough to find it there; about $10 a roll and the roll will do the tiles and more. The clear wallpaper will have to be cut after application (it's self adhesive), will have to be trimmed with an craft knife. Hope this helps. I'll be trying this on my set and I've used the clear wallpaper on other games over the years to protect them and 20 years later a lot of them are still in mint condition.
Warning, don't buy the frosted clear wallpaper, you can't see through it.

While I haven't tried it myself, it looks like it might be worth a try.  Maybe on a cheaper game first, so that if it doesn't work, you haven't screwed up you're favorite game.
I will go to the local Fred Meyer today and see if they have something like this, and if so, try it out myself.
You might also try clear contact paper.

I'm not familiar with the wallpaper, but there's 'contact paper' in the U.S., which is a self-adhesive plastic sold to line kitchen shelves with to make them easier to wipe up ... it also comes in clear.  The only disadvantage would be in the size of the rolls -- contact paper rolls are typically 18" (45cm) wide, which will take more finesse when covering large boards (aligning the edges at a seam in the board).  I haven't used it on game boards, but I have used it to 'laminate' reference sheets so I can use wet erase pens on them.

The usual recommendation is to get a sheet of plexiglass (known as Perspex® in the UK) and lay that across the board when you're playing.  It's an especially good solution for "board" games that don't actually have a board.
Well-made board-backed games don't really need any help, but many small-press games have the board printed on stiff card or even paper.  Paper gaming surfaces go back at least to SPI's foundation in 1969, and so do plexiglass coverings to prevent them getting ruined.

I was really hoping for something that would be more like a spray on adhesive instead of an additional piece of equipment (plexiglass). But, regardless... in your experience, do you just get a single piece and use it for all your game boards? Or do you get pieces to fit each board specifically? Just out of curiosity.

I have a few pieces in varying sizes.  They don't need to be exactly fitted to the boards, but if you have a piece the size of a ping-pong table for a board the size of a sheet of A3 paper, then it looks slightly ridiculous.

I use this method and it works great for modular games like Mansions of madness. If you put the perspex over the game, people can't spill beer on it, and the tiles don't move around whenever someone gets a little too enthusiastic.

There are products like SprayFix, which cover paper with a protective varnish. It prevents dirt from attaching to paper surfaces. This is used often with games using counters, to protect them from wearing. I think you can apply it to board surfaces perfectly.

This is probably a better solution than clear contact paper because you don't have a separate physical layer than the board material that will grow-shrink at a different pace than the board, might wrinkle over time, and might cloud/fade/yellow over time. I second this recommendation -- go to a good arts supply store and ask to learn about the various sprays that artists use to cover/protect their drawings and paintings.

You could always use the original plastic shrink-wrap that the game shipped in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-s1p8Vnym0