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How should hands that are EXTREMELY strong in one suit (10+ cards) be bid?
I'm a bit of a bridge noob, but I'm kind of puzzled about this. Say I have a hand that is ridiculously strong in one suit, say at least 10 cards with all 4 honors (I'll use spades for the example suit). how should I bid? This is so many cards that almost nobody will be leading spades but me, so if another suit is trump, I'm flush out of luck.
Obviously I would want to end up playing a spade contract with a good potential for a slam, but if I open too high, say 5 spades, won't my opponents catch on pretty quickly and bid in their own suits or No-trump, just so my spades will be next to useless? They will likely have favorable distributions for their own suits since nearly all the spades are gone, which only worsens the fact. Then again, if I bid to low, my partner may not rebid, and while taking 12 tricks at a contract of 3S is obviously good, knowing you will have that many overtricks from the start seems kind of a waste.
Even if I held 12 or 13 spades, if I bid 7S, won't my opponents just bid 7NT and I'll never get to lead? How should hands with this heavy a distribution be bid to make the most of them?
(I've already said I'm not a very experienced bridge player, so if I'm making any glaring oversights don't hesitate in the slightest to bring them up.)

NOTE: I know these hands are extremely rare, but in all reality, every single possible hand is rare enough that studying bridge hands is actually quite useless because you'll never see the same hand again in your life...but we do it anyway because that's how we learn. Couldn't you tell anyone asking about a specific hand not to worry about it because it'll never show up again? :D

If you hold 12 or 13 spades, chances are someone has stacked the deck, so be VERY VERY CAREFUL you're not walking into a setup before you bet your house and car on the game :)

10+ card suits are so rare that it's not worth learning about if you're just beginning. Much more common is 6 or 7 card suits, for which there various sets of conventions. I've played well over 10,000 hands and have yet to see a 10 card suit held by any player.

For the edit you made, see the edit in my answer.

@Aryabhata I suggest splitting the question in 2, as we're now collectively trying to answer two different questions, one about long suits, and the other about why many bridge players suggest that beginning to intermediate players put off learning to bid certain types of hands. I think this second question is very worth getting asked and answered for all new bridge players, so I'll post it separately in a few minutes. A clear answer to this 2nd question will help you make sense of why bidding systems ignore certain types of hands, and why most bridge players think this is a good thing.

@Aryabhata Also - Aryabhat's answer below is a pretty good answer to the new question I asked about putting off learning to bid certain types of hands. I'm hoping something along these lines shows up as an answer, perhaps from Aryabhat.

@Aryabhata Lastly, here might be a reasonable way to reformulate the original question so that it is more easily answerable: Are there conventions or standard practices within Standard American bidding for bidding hands with very long suits of 9 or more cards? If not, what bidding systems are better at dealing with these rare hands?

@JoeGolton: Agree that it is worth a separate question, but I think we should let this question stay as it is (except perhaps reverting to the previous version) as there are answers here which might become meaningless after what you suggest.

"won't my opponents catch on pretty quickly and bid in their own suits or No-trump, just so my spades will be next to useless?" Your opponents are going to get slaughtered at no-trump as long as you are on lead OR your partner has at least one of your suit.

Asking about individual hands is not useless unless you are literally asking about the hand; most bridge questions about bidding and play are actually a form of "How do I bid/play this type of hand?" There's nothing wrong with asking these questions; just realize that as you learn, there are other situations that you'll face much more often, and those should probably take up much more of your time.

If you have 10+ spades in your hand, you will never let a contract die out in 3S now, would you?
It really depends on the hand, but people play the following two conventions which might potentially be useful (of course, there might be others).

Namyats. This is to distinguish hands which are too strong for just preempting 4S. You show stronger hands by bidding 4D (taking spades as your suit), which you could potentially use here, though 10+ would probably be too strong. There are various followups which can be used to investigate slam.
4NT opening bid as Ace asking. Say you had AKQJxxxxxx, A,x,x. You could bid 4NT as asking for Aces, and bid the slam appropriately.

Anyway, hands with a 10+ suit are very rare and even experts have trouble with them (or rather, don't bother with them so much, because of the rarity).
As to your question about opponents taking out to their suit, why do you think that is likely to happen? It is quite risky for them to be bidding at the 5/6/7 level, without a running suit of their own. Your bidding at the 4/5/6/7 level would have taken out enough bidding space to make it unlikely they would be able to overcall easily (and find a fit). You seem to be also forgetting that you have a partner who could still hold some cards, and could easily double them and take them for a number. If they do bid, well, you can't help it, but I would say it is not as likely as you seem to think.

As to your edit.
Yes, any specific hand (down to the spots) is a low occurrence (in fact same chance for each hand!), but bidding systems are not geared towards finding the exact specific hand you have. Bidding systems are geared towards finding fits, distribution and strength with the ultimate goal of finding the right strain and level based on the scoring.
When talking about 'rarity', you should be thinking in terms of hand types rather than specific hands. So when someone says getting a 7 card spade suit is much more likely than getting a 10 card spade suit, they are not talking specific hands, but a set of hands. Take the set of all hands which have 7 card spade suit and the set of all hands which have a 10 card spade suit and compare the counts.
When people say 10+ card suits are rare, they are talking about the whole set.
You might never get the same hand dealt again, true, but the same hand type (say 15-17 balanced) might occur again frequently.
Bidding space is very limited, and trying to cater to rare hands can be inefficient use of that space.

As I previously commented, your question is worth breaking in to two parts:
1) How do you bid long suits?
2) Why do bridge players so often suggest that beginning to intermediate players put off learning to bid certain types of hands.?
I thought this second question to be so good that I separately asked and answered it here:
Why are beginning to intermediate bridge players told to delay learning how to bid certain types of unusual hands?
As to your original question about bidding hands with very long suits, my answer is:
First, throw out the notion of using points to evaluate the strength of the hand. There are so many tricks sitting in the hand that it's a simple matter to count them up, which is a more accurate method for evaluating hands of this type than points.
For example, let's say I have:

Spades: AKQxxxxxxx
Hearts: xx
Diamonds: A
Clubs:

It's obvious that I can take 11 tricks with this hand automatically. It's also obvious that all I need to take all 13 tricks is for my partner to take 2 heart tricks or to take two tricks in other suits before hearts are played so that I can discard my 2 losing hearts. All of this is very simple reasoning you can do without counting points.
The only question you need to answer about this hand is whether partner has a heart ace, a heart void, or some other strength that might cause you to discard your heart losers before the defense ever plays a heart. If you bid this hand up slowly with a series of forcing bids, you partnership will hopefully get a chance to employ a control showing or control asking bid that allows your partnership to determine if the weak suit is covered.
So, using the Standard American bidding system with weak two opening bids, this hand would be opened with two clubs (indicating strength, and forcing), and if you and your partner correctly employ appropriate control showing/asking bids, you would likely land up in the right contract, if there's no interference from the opponents.
That covers strong hands.
If you have a weak hand, such as 10 spades and no face cards except the spade Jack, then you still have a minimum of 7 winners, and probability favors at least 8 winners. So with the weak hand it makes sense to preempt at an unusually high level of 5 or 6 spades, as your opponents are likely to have a slam contract. Going down 2 or 3 doubled will net your partnership a more favorable result than your opponents making slam.
Note that I'm using a common bridge principle here that suggests that you should bid up strong hands slowly, but jump to a high bid quickly with weak hands that have long suits or other preemptive features.
In summary, the existing tools of your bidding system for dealing with very strong hands and weak hands with preemptive value may be enough to handle hands with exceptionally long suits. Learn these tools well, and you should be able to handle most hands of the type you described without too much trouble.

So if you have this hand, you can make 5S for certain and need partner to have the ace of hearts or KQ for you to make 6. Kx would make it 50% and KJ you'd have more chance if you guess right.
If partner has Ax in hearts and the ace of clubs, or a trump entry, or king of diamonds and they don't lead a heart, you also might make 7.
Either open 2C to enquire or pre-empt and be prepared to guarantee game, as the opps may have a save anyway.

Hands gain strength in two ways, by the number of high card points, and the number of trumps.
For now, I'm going to assume that you have a minimum hand of your type, that is, 10 spades to the AKQJ and no other honors. Your hand is only "average" in high card points (10), but it is WAY above average in trump strength (most hands would consider themselves lucky to have five). In this case, you can make four spades, so just bid it. Even with 10 to KQJ, I'd bid 4 spades and hope that partner has the one trick I need.
First, your opponents can't bid NT because you'll run the spade suit. They MIGHT have a suit contract at the 5 or 6 level, but your "pre-empt" has taken up so much bidding room, so they might not find it. With luck, you'll take your ace of spades on defense, and if partner has a "little something," you'll be able to beat most five or six level contracts.
It typically takes 25-29 points to make game. If your partner has a "few," your opponents won't have a game.
On the other hand, your FIVE extra spades gives you a lot of extra points. I count each extra trump (over five) as being worth three points. Basically, your hand is worth 25 points (ten HCP, 15 for the extra trumps) if you play in spades, and only 10 if you play in any other suit. That's why you can, and should, be aggressive about bidding spades.

If opponents "can be beat" in their sacrifice while 4S (or even higher) is a lock, then that's not really a great situation. However, aggressive bidding makes it harder (basically impossible) for opponents to figure out which suit is best for them, and even if spades are completely irrelevant, opponents might not have a whole bunch of HCP or a good fit.

I just played a hand like this at my local club which has dealing machines and all, so definitely a random hand. My partner had 10 diamonds (AKQ, 7 others) and 3 singletons in each of the other suits (one being the QS). I believe he mistakenly opened with 5D because that is premptive and yet, his hand is extremely powerful.  In effect, he preempted me as well.  We made 7.  I thought that a 2C bid seemed more appropriate, however, I learned that the opening of 4NT was the most useful. The consensus was that if his partner had any Aces, then as captain, he could make the decision of whether to go to slam. If partner responds 5C, then he can still bail at 5D.
Even opening 1D would be right because you have an opening point count of 11HCP and at least 6 for length, so you know you can always jump to 5D if you have to on the 2nd bid, and possibly be doubled for an added benefit.
It was tremendous fun to have that hand to play and discuss. I wish that for everyone to experience at least once!

FWIW, when I was able to play semi-regularly, my partnerships had an immediate opening to 2NT as a Blackwood-style demand bid asking for aces (in addition to the SAYC meaning for 2C). The idea is that 2NT means "partner, my hand is highly unusual in some unspecified way; please let me take control of the auction". The "natural" meaning of a 2NT opening is covered by SAYC 2C (and it seemed worthwhile not to abuse 2C to lie to partner about high-card strength in strange situations - that's "psychic bidding" after all).

Sports Illustrated, in antiquity (1960s) had a bridge column, and it once dealt with the problem. They gave a convincing argument for passing in the early bidding, then work your way as high as you can in your suit. The general idea was to convince the opponents that they'd be better off doubling you for penalties, than continuing with their suits, since you seem to be sacrificing, and have shown a hand that's a total bust.

Does advice from the 60's apply to how the game is played these days?

For this type of hands, of course it does.

It does, but NOT "of course"; there is much advice from the '60's that is no longer applicable today. You really need to explain why advice form the '60's, on this topic, remains relevant.

What could have changed since the 60s that would apply to this case? The rules of the game haven't changed. Whatever bidding system you use, you wouldn't be using it here. Your partner would also not know what you're up to.

In addition to Aryabhata's answer, you should consider the possibility that a 12 or 13-card suit is not the result of a random deal.  (I don't agree that it's necessarily cheating; the commonest reason is somebody taking a new pack, cutting once and dealing, without checking whether the cards were ordered by the manufacturer).  So if you are looking at a 13-card suit, the probability is that all three others are doing the same, no matter what the mathematics say. Bid seven spades just in case, but the deal will be void.
And 7NT over 7S is radically unsound (unless you are in fact cheating).  If the wrong person calls, it is a guaranteed 13 down: even if not, there is no reason to think you can make all 13 tricks just because the spade suit will never be touched.

Even in the likely event that they don't make the contract, isn't going going down 8 doubled better than your opponents making a grand-slam? (-800 vs. -1000? or am I mistaking the scoring?) :)

@CrazyJugglerDrummer; not necessarily. A lot depends on vulnerability, and duplicate scoring has been changed for just this reason.  But for an ordinary player, as Joe Golton says, these hands are so rare as to be negligible.

so is any hand, no? Why are the hands I've described any different from others in the fact that you'll never see them again in your life?

No, they really aren't equally likely.  A seven-card suit is likely to come up maybe once an evening, so it's worth studying how to play them.  A 13-card suit, mathematically, is not going to happen (my estimate, back when I studied such things, was that one or two have probably arisen randomly in the world since bridge was invented.) The 'xxx' in hand descriptions make a big difference to the probabilities; ask a mathematician.

@CrazyJugglerDrummer; I'm not clear whether this question is purely academic (like a chess problem) or whether you really think it an important part of the game.  If the former, it's interesting; if the latter, you really need to play some more (no offence intended).

This is definitely an academic question, and I apologize for any rudeness, it just seems interesting that so many people have said not to worry about how to play this hand because it won't actually happen when nobody says that about other hands. I suppose other more common hands would be more relevant as similar hands appear more often (eg. strong 5-card holdings in both majors), so their advice not to worry about this ridiculously unique hand is easily justifiable.

The chances of being dealt a 10 card suit are allegedly 1 in 60,000 (I haven't checked), and basically longer suits than that are a million to one, or much, much greater against.  Why bother thinking too hard about something that's going to happen to you once in a lifetime, even if you play Bridge all the time?  Wing it if and when it happens.

There are 3 approaches really:

Scientific approach. You try to ascertain what you can make by communicating with partner. The opponents may enter the bidding, but you want to know who can make what and ensure par is met on the hand.
Pre-emptive approach. Assumption that the opponents have something on and you want to leap in at a high level so they find it hard to find their best contract. They may accept being pre-empted or may refuse to let you play it, trying to find their fit at a high level, and your partner might have lots of defence whilst nothing to help you, in which case they'll come unstuck in their 5 or 6 level contract.
Bluffing approach. You pretend to have less than you really do. Sandbagging or walking the dog or whatever people might call it. But if you bid 1S then 2S then 3S then 4S you might even get doubled there, and at 5S someone may certainly double you or pass based on "the 5 level belongs to the opponents".

Different players will try different approaches. (3) and (1) can be somewhat combined if you can find out more about partner's hand without giving away too much about your own.


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Glory to Rome: play a role, perform no action
In Glory to Rome, if a player leads with a role, say Architect (using a Jack, as it is important to this example) can I follow with an actual Architect card if I either have no legal plays (all in-town sites are built or my stockpile is empty/not applicable to my under construction buildings) or if I want to perform no action other than to get an architect role into the pool at the end of the turn?
(Specifically this is so I can patron an Architect to win the game through the Forum's special ability, and Architects don't make it/remain in the pool.)

In Glory to Rome, I find the general answer to "Can I do X?" questions is yes.  Your question follows that pattern, or else I'd be very surprised for this reason:
If you were forced to have a valid move at the time that you followed, then you could never really follow a legionnaire, because you might have your hand reduced to nothing but jacks, in which case you couldn't actually demand anything.

You can follow with an actual Architect card, or choose to Think regardless of whether you have a legal action to play. I think I am understanding the rules correctly. Your opponent can lead with a Jack, because a Jack can be used to lead or follow any role.

Jack Fictional Roman citizens of all trades.  Jacks may be used to lead as or follow any role.

The Leader selects a role, and then each other player gets the option of Following, or Thinking.

On each turn the player with the Leader Card (The Leader) decides what  type of turn (Role) it is going to be, and then each other player decides whether to participate (Follow) or draw cards (Think) Here’s how to play each turn:

If the Leader “leads” then in clockwise order around the table each other player may either:

“think” and draw more cards (see below)
“follow” by playing an Order card of the same role as the Leader

In clockwise order, each other player now gets to perform one action if they chose to follow, plus an additional action for each client he has of the chosen role.  Players who thought instead of following do still get to take actions for their clients!

The decision to "follow" is made by playing the Order card, and doesn't require a mandatory use of the action. This is supported in the rules by the Stairway Card.

Stairway - Each time you execute an Architect action you may also chose to move an appropriate material into any opponent’s completed structure in order to immediately grant that structure’s function to all players ... You may perform the additional action even if you choose not to use your Architect action.

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Is Starship Catan similar enough to be considered a two-player adaptation of Starfarers of Catan?
I've played Starfarers of Catan(BGG|Wikipedia) once and loved it. Usually, I only have one other to play board games with. I'd like to know how similar Starship Catan(BGG|Wikipedia) is so I can decide whether it's worth the purchase.

It has some similar ideas (e.g. your ship gets new abilities as you build it up), but it's really a totally different game.  And, I think, a better one.

Thank you! Could you, perhaps, go into a little more detail?

It's just a very different game.  Instead of a board that you explore, there are stacks of cards representing different sectors; the cards contain planets that you can trade at, enemies to fight, etc.  You choose a pile to explore, and then your sensors determine how many cards you can look at before you draw, and your engines determine how many cards you draw.  (This game was clearly a big influence on Galaxy Trucker.)  You still collect resources and use them to buy upgrades and the like.  I haven't played it in years, but I played it a lot when I first got it.  It's fun.

thanks. I'd really appreciate it if you'd integrate that comment into your answer.

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How should my strategy change for six players?
I often play (and often win) the card-game Wizard with 3 players. I call somewhat aggressively and it works out well.
Recently, I played with more players, and my strategy didn't work as well in those circumstances. Especially with six players (the maximum), I don't have much success. How should I adjust my strategy for more players?

Call easy, Play aggressively
I've only played it up to 5 players but in my experience the game works best if you don't go overboard with you calls. I prefer to call one or even two tricks less than I tought if someone else calls big numbers. But then I try to persue those tricks aggressively.
Because even if the calls add up nicely people generally don't manage to follow through. So waiting towards the end to get you tricks is risky as the chances that someone messes up increases with the number of players. Fighting for you tricks to soon is risky too because that's an easy way to waste good cards to wizards.

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What are good tips and suggestions for first-time Junta players?
We'll be pulling Junta off the shelf for the first time in years, and our group will consist of players who haven't played since the last time years ago, and players who have never played it at all.
I've done a couple obvious things for setup - separated cards and chits into separate zipbags for ease of finding things. What other things can I do to help the game go smoothly?
edit: worth mentioning that we're expecting 8-10 people, so we plan to use the extra positions (Foreign Minister, Farm & Labor, Secretary of War).

I guess the best thing you could do is to make sure there is at least one person really familiar with the rules, ideally someone who have played this game not so long ago. It's great to hear you are making effort to make the game more enjoyable for other players, I would like play a game with such game host. So, with your attitude I would say you're half way there.
As I said, I think the best thing you can do is to learn the rules really well, try going over them in your head (prepare yourself for explaining the rules). If possible, try to play the game yourself a few times before the event. I tried to find you a place to play Junta online, but all i got is PBEM version.
This seems to me as a good rules refresher for Junta.

It's worth noting too that anyone familiar with the rules should not take advantage of other players' lack of knowledge of the rules. The game may be cutthroat, but it's no fun to anyone if they just lost a coup because they weren't told all the rules.

First time playing, everyone has to use a cheesy spanish accent.
"Meester Prezidente, joo haz all deez monies! Geef me monies, hefe, and I protect joo!"


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What is a safe and accurate technique for shuffling cards?
Especially for games which involve frequent card shuffling by multiple players of decks of uneven sizes is there is a technique for shuffling which is quick and easy for everyone to learn yet also reliably random?
Ideally this would work with cards which were sleeved.
I'm asking in particular for games of Dominion but have run into this question around many other games involving multiple decks as well. Back in my days of serious Magic the Gathering playing deck shuffling was always a complex subject especially in tournament situations (and even in more casual play as keeping the cards undamaged was a priority)

In Dominion, everyone is usually constantly shuffling when it's not their turn.  Plus, for most of the early game at least, decks are rather small.  I tend to think that, as long as the ordering of the card decks is in fairly constant motion, insistence on "true randomization" is a luxury rather a necessity.  Keeping the game moving is more important to me than being 100% sure that any possible clumping has been eliminated!

I mostly play Dominion as a two-player game with my girlfriend, mostly I'm looking for a good technique for us both to use to ensure minimal wear, especially once we add card sleeves, and which is fast and reasonably reliable and fair. Neither of us wants an unfair advantage but casual, lazy shuffling often results in clumps of cards remaining across shuffles leading to repeats of combos etc.

True, true, though it could potentially be difficult to tell whether "repeats of combos" is a product of lazy shuffling... or having built a powerful and consistent deck!

Indeed though when I got the only three villages in my deck one after the other I suspect my shuffling was at fault.

When I shuffle I use a mixture of two techniques: riffle and stripping (as defined quite adequately in the Wikipedia article on shuffling). Riffle separates adjacent cards while stripping cycles cards from the top of the deck to the bottom.
I use both because riffle alone will very slowly push cards in the bottom half of each cut down, but tends to leave the top of the deck the same; stripping mitigates this drawback. Stripping alone takes too long to separate adjacent cards.
Early in the game when the deck is small (< 20 cards) it's very difficult--and unnecessary--to riffle so I only strip.
Wikipedia points out that riffling can be hard on cards; however, I've found that damage typically occurs because the person isn't good at shuffling and either excessively bends the cards or doesn't get good interspersion between the cuts. Being able to execute a bridge also reduces card wear as it evens out the bending and prevents the cards from acquiring a camber. In fact, I think proper riffle shuffling breaks in cards and makes them less stiff and prone to sticking to each other.
It seems that you're looking for something potentially easier to learn the riffling, but nothing is as fast (vital in Dominion) or as reliable at randomizing a deck. Honestly, anyone with reasonable motor skills should be able to learn to riffle with practice.
Wash shuffles are great for randomization but totally infeasible for Dominion since they take so long and take so much table space.
Weaves have the same end results at riffles, so if you weave you should strip as well. A weave is easier for many people to do, but will damage cards quickly as you have to slam or wiggle the edges of the deck together. Cards were made to return to their original shape when gently bent; they were not made to take stresses on their edges.

Like Adam said: A Wash shuffle is a great shuffle opening if you have the space. After that some alternating Riffle and stripping shuffle produce a fast and thorough shuffle. Since OP is planning to go for card sleeves the Weave shuffle becomes an ideal substitute for the riffle. Just split the pile in half and push them into each other. Thanks to the sleeves your cards will easily interweave with much less effort and strain on your cards.

I Weave and Strip, alternately (with sleeves).  I make sure when Stripping that I don't consistently get a single card, so I'm not just reversing the order of the cards but am introducing some more randomness.  The Weave should split adjacent cards apart, and the Strip reorders them so the two compliment each other nicely.

From the wikipedia page though: "CCG cards can be damaged from riffle shuffling, even when protected with card sleeves"  And strip shuffling is exactly what I was suggesting.

I just want to emphasize @Kempeth's point regarding Weave shuffling and card sleeves.  I tend to notice that with a lot of Riffle shuffling cards start permanently bending, but with a lot of Weave shuffling I only have to replace the sleeves every once in a while and my cards are still straight and undamaged.  But I definitely wouldn't try to Weave unsleeved cards.

Adam did an awesome job of answering, so I won't repeat anything he mentioned there, but there's 2 things I want to add.

I like mixing regular strip shuffles with the variant where you pick up most of the deck like normal, but instead of depositing cards with a chopping motion on one side of the cards only, alternate the side you put the cards on by flipping the growing pile back and forth with your fingers. This tends to mix things up a little better, and its pretty fun to do.
I also use a method where you pick up 90% of the deck like you were going to strip, but instead of chopping the cards into your other hand, gradually reduce the pressure of your thumb and middle finger holding the cards above your hand. This will cause some cards to fall into your hand in a somewhat random order as they can fall from the middle, front, or back. This results in a sort of combination of the effects of striping to cycle cards around and rippling to reduce cards keeping the exact same order through the shuffle. As with any single shuffling technique, I wouldn't use it exclusively if you want the best results. :)

From what I know of M:tG, a common shuffling technique is to deal the cards to a number of piles, say about 5 to 8, randomly sending a card to each pile until all are used up.  Then stack the piles in random order.
For Dominion, I commonly just use an under-over-hand shuffle.  That is, with cards in my right hand, I splash some amount off the top into my left.  Then I flip the left side up and splash some more so this new set is on the bottom of the left hand stack.  I'll randomly pick between top and bottom, sometimes even splitting the deck in my left and dumping some cards in the middle.
Its not highly random, but if you do it several times in a row, it seems to mix the cards up pretty well.

The problem with pile shuffling is that in MtG it is used exactly because it isn't random (if you do it in a pattern) - i.e. you use it to take an ordered deck (lands & other cards) and mix them up in a highly distributed manner - i.e. you are breaking up clumps. This is good for casual play and if followed by additional shuffling and cuts which are fair it isn't a horrible thing (since starting with a deck with all the land and all the other cards clumped together isn't random either) but it isn't foolproof either.

I've read some of the thoughts on what kinds of shuffling provide the "most random" results and I think it's all pretty much bunk.  If you're shuffling to a pattern, then you're cheating: just the same as if you used false shuffles to disguise a cold deck in a poker game.  If that's the concern though, then I could only suggest over-under shuffles and in full view of each other and a ref to watch for cheating.

Yes. Hence my question. Though to be clear I'm looking for techniques for casual play.

I used to do that but with 52 piles!

@Shannon: Magic cards tend to get sticky in tournaments. Doing a pile "shuffle" can break apart clumps that are literally stuck together, so it has its purpose. If your opponent, however, is carefully pile shuffling the entire time you should exert your right to shuffle their deck at least once yourself.

indeed - years ago I was a semi-pro player (before the pro tour was formalized and in the early days of it) so yes you are wise to exercise your right to shuffle your opponent's deck

I've heard some praising reviews of shuffling machines.  I don't know how well they work with sleeved cards, but they are very quick, easy to use and fair.  They aren't prohibitively expensive either, and could certainly be justified for casual use if you play a lot of card games.

I happen to own a shuffling machine, a 6-deck one to be exact. I've also never used it with sleeved cards. Machines are quick, but only when shuffling large numbers of cards (we use ours for hand-and-foot, which is played with 6-decks). For smaller, Dominion-sized decks (say < 40) it wouldn't be worth using and only does a ripple shuffle anyway. The one I own is also much harder on cards than hand shuffling. There's no way I'd put my Dominion cards into it. In fact, we have to replace the 6 decks fairly regularly. Luckily their normal playing cards so that's cheap.

that's what I kinda assumed though I haven't used shuffling machines myself - but they seemed both best suited for multiple deck situations and cheap, standard cards not specialized cards such as CCGs or Dominion decks.


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In Pass the Pigs, when is the optimal point to stop?
I can imagine that there is a point at which a single player would always be wise to no longer advance. I see it being a function of all of the various combinations. The problem is, I've never quite been able to figure out all of the probabilities of a given combination coming up. Does anyone out there know what the optimal value is where you are more likely to lose then to continue onward? BTW, the version I have is this one, not sure if it makes a difference... Thanks!

This is a much more complex issue than it at first seems.  The game of pass the pigs is derived from an older, simpler game called Pig.  In Pig each player takes turns with a six sided die and may roll as many times as they like, or until they roll a 1.  If they roll a 1 they score nothing for the round, otherwise they score the total rolled.
Pass the Pigs is roughly equivalent to this.  Think of a game with a weighted n-sided die, with sides "Pig out", "Double trotter", "Razorback", etc.  A player may roll this die until they roll "Pig out", and their score for the round is the cumulative score, or zero if a "Pig out" was rolled.  The difference is the inclusion of "Making Bacon" (reset your score to 0), and "Piggy Back" (player is out of the game).
In Pig each player's optimal play is dependent only on the current scores. This means that when you receive the dice, you can calculate what your target score for the turn should be.  If you reach that score then you should bank it, and pass the dice on.
Wikipedia is a good starting point for further information about optimal play.  Also this website has graphs and an AI opponent to demonstrate the best play in pig.
So finally, it should be possible to apply the same methods to Pass the Pigs if you knew the probabilities of the various pig rolls.  These probabilities have been calculated here (see Table 4), using a data set of 6000 throws.  They have also calculated the value you should aim for to maximize your expected score in a turn in Section 3.2 (the target is about 21 or 22).  I can't find a similar analysis corresponding to multiplayer Pass the Pigs though.

Very interesting. Amazing how such a simple game can be so complex...


text:
What is the optimal method to shuffle an organised deck of cards
In a number of games I play there are a play deck and a discard deck (for example Ticket to Ride and Pandemic).  The discard deck, by the way the games are constructed, becomes organised as cards are discarded in groups.  However, the play deck needs to be as close to random as possible for the games to work well.  I would like to know if there is an optimal way to shuffle a deck to overcome the self organisation of the discard decks in these circumstances.  I can riffle shuffle well but have read some research that it would take 7 full riffle shuffles to effectivley remove the affects of an organised deck.  Are there any other methods of cuttings of the deck or shuffle types that create a random deck in a more efficient manner?

Do you want something fast or something thorough?

I am looking for a trade-off between fast and thorough.  With Ticket To Ride you have potentially a very organised deck and a short turn around as the game has effectively stopped while you are waiting for a shuffle.

possible duplicate of What is a safe and accurate technique for shuffling cards?

For Ticket to Ride, as cards are turned in I distribute them across up to six stacks, trying to not place cards on top of like cards (orange does not go on top of orange). Sometimes a card gets tucked to the bottom of a stack. When it comes time to shuffle, the stacks get shuffled together pair by pair (stack 1 with 2, then 3 with 4, etc.), ultimately combining things. It seems to make things more random than otherwise.
(For Pandemic, there's often very few cards, so things can go bad very fast and it may just seem like it's not random.)
I guess my point (and others') is, doing some kinf of pre-shuffling the cards during play as cards are discarded can help with randomization.

By trying not to place cards on top of like cards, you are moving toward even distribution, which is not random. The rest of your technique sounds good, but if you're going for randomization, don't ever arrange cards according to a pattern.

That's very, very simple in fact: shuffle the discard pile constantly. Take a player that, while not playing his turn, shuffles the discard pile of cards. When discarding, simply give the cards to this player (who can change when he's tired), he will put them in the deck and go on shuffling.

I like this idea but it is going to reduce the lifetime of the cards which in games like TtR which, in my experience, tend to get pretty badly handled.

@AlexC I see what you mean, I had this problem too. Then I changed the kind of people I played with ;-) (This, of course is to be taken as un-seriously as possible). Anyway, that's true. You found the flaw of my technique.

The article on Shuffling at the Wikipedia discusses the famous paper by Persi Diaconis and Dave Bayer which shows that a 52 card deck of cards doesn't become random until the fifth shuffle, and requires seven shuffles to become "truly" random.
Your question "Are there any other methods of cuttings of the deck or shuffle types that create a more random deck?" isn't really asking the right question. Even just cutting the deck will randomize the deck just as well as any other method, given enough cuts. No other method will make it any "more random". The real question is "how many cuts are required to fully randomize a deck of X cards?" or "How many riffle shuffles are required?".
Pokerology.com has videos and tutorials for six different methods of shuffling cards. I think that for smaller decks like Ticket To Ride, simply splaying them out on the playing surface face down and messing them about, followed by a few riffle and overhand shuffles should be enough to randomize the deck.

Agree with the answer, I have amended the question.  The point I am trying to get at is not the nature of randomness but the most efficient manner in which to get a deck that appears random.

"Even just cutting the deck will randomize the deck just as well as any other method, given enough cuts." Depends on how you cut it. If you just do the type of cut where you lift off a section and place it at the bottom, you're only keeping the same order of the cards, so there are only 52 possible combinations rather than the 52! from proper shuffling.

@JoeZeng I admit I don't have enough math knowledge to dispute this. Does it hold true if you perform multiple Scarne's Cuts, where you take a portion from the middle, put it on top, then perform a regular cut?

@ghoppe Scarne's Cut doesn't have that problem because it takes a middle portion as well as the top portion. I was talking about the simplest cut that usually gets performed only once before the dealer starts dealing.

For Scarne's Cut, it seems like it would take about 50 or 60 cuts to achieve "true" randomness. But I haven't analyzed it enough to say either way either.

Ditto Joe Z about cutting not really helping with randomization. I wanted to add that I'm dubious about the Pokerology methods. It looks to me like weave, riffle, and table riffle are all equivalent to each other (so they would take seven shuffles to randomize a standard 52-card deck, per Diaconis); and the overhand, "Hindu", and strip methods all look equivalent to each other (and overhand requires 2500 iterations to randomize a deck according to (https://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/20002.4-6.shtml)). So I think the method does actually matter.

With Ticket to ride, 3-5 riffle shuffles should be sufficient to randomize the deck sufficiently for play. As long as the runs of matched cards aren't 5-6 cards long, it's not a big issue.
I'll note that japanese style block shuffling is inadequate for TTR until about the 9th or  time through the deck, which I discovered due to using sleeved cards in Nordic.
However, for sleeved cards, riffling is a nearly surefire way to strip the sleeves, so sliding a block sideways into the deck works well. Holding the deck loosely, pull a block, the place it looselysideways against the side of the deck, and gently push - it should interpenetrate. This is actually about as efective as riffling if done with half the deck at a time, but it's easier to stack a deck this way, so have someone else cut the deck.

I absolutely adore the "mash" shuffle method described in the last paragraph. It's less damaging than a riffle, and much easier to do.

Wikipedia calls it a 'weave' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuffling#Weave_and_Faro_shuffles) and I also find it to be superior to a riffle. It's about as fast, easier than a riffle, and doesn't bend the cards nearly as much when done subtly.

With every card game I play I do a mix of Riffle, Stripping, and Mongean-Stripping Combo.  I generally intermix these in a random order with a random number of times, usually at least 3.
I've found that mixing shuffling techniques, especially in a random order, will result in a fairly nice card distribution and randomization.

Generally speaking, I shuffle using a combination of overhand and Hindu shuffle. I start with the pack in my left hand, pluck out the middle half with my right, and then proceed to drop blocks of cards alternatively onto the top and then bottom of the pack, using a quick flick of fingers or thumb to swap between cards dropping onto the top or bottom of the pack. Two or three rounds of this do a pretty good job of randomising for most games. For highly ordered discard piles however, this can leave small clusters of related cards, even after quite a few rounds.
If I really want to ensure that I break up sequences though, I use a Pile shuffle with the slight variation that I deal each card onto a random pile rather than visiting each pile in turn. One round of this is usually enough to break up the sequences, then I usually finish off with a quick round or two of hand shuffling, as I describe above.
If I have the time, I'll do a pair of pile shuffles, picking two different prime numbers for the number of piles in each round. This can can substantially amplify the randomisation, even if you use a sequential pile shuffle, since correlations between number of piles and sequence length will be broken by lack of correlation between the number of piles in each round.
I'll let people I trust riffle shuffle game cards, but it is far to easy to damage cards with this technique if you aren't good at it. I certainly don't trust myself not to damage my cards.
Finally, when playing at a table, with plenty of space, it's very tempting to just do a big wash, but I've never been happy with the results of a this technique. It is far too easy for related cards and even quite large blocks to end up staying together.

ghoppe already posted the link to wikipedia and aramis told you about shuffling sleeved cards.
I personally employ a strategy of about 2 riffle and 1 strip shuffle repeated 2-3 times depending on how heavily the deck is ordered. Riffle is good to mix cards, and strip to reorder the top and bottom part of the deck. If you have a smooth and large enough surface also don't underestimate a wash shuffle - it's an especially convenient way to shuffle large and heavily ordered decks.

Though, I think a lot of people have a bad habit when wash-shuffling of just moving the cards around together without mixing them. Don't do that, and you'll be fine.

Or there's always the lazy option: automatic card shuffler. I was surprised, they're available easily for less than $20 on Amazon.

the problem i have with these is that 1. they break easily (at least the ones i've used do), 2. they don't hold larger decks well

Yeah. I've never used one, but the reviews on Amazon were mixed. One in particular complained that it didn't work well on MTG cards, as they're slightly smaller than typical playing cards.

In my experience, with the cheap ones at least, the biggest problem with them is that they are so noisy. In the time that it takes to walk to the room where you've stashed the shuffler, you could have shuffled it several times. *8')

They are also really hard on cards, so good for cheap poker ones, but bad for CGC.


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How are the Spiel des Jahres decisions made?
The Spiel des Jahres is one of the biggest, if not the biggest award in European gaming.  It is estimated that winning Spiel des Jahres can increase the sales tenfold.
I am interested to know what process is used to come to the decisions for the winner of the Spiel des Jahres. Obviously there is a jury and a list of nominations; but how are the nominations and the final decisions about the winners made?

From the Spiel's website (the English version at least):

Jury The jury consists solely of journalists who specialize in game
  reviews, have worked for extended periods for newspapers, magazines,
  and broadcast organizations and who have thereby proven their
  competency and ability to make sound judgments. The association's
  charter forbids jury membership to any person involved in any way with
  games publishing and sales.
Election Procedure The jury will consider all new family and adult
  games published during the current and previous calendar year. There
  is no separate request for submissions. The election procedure goes
  through two phases: an information gathering phase and an initial
  evaluation phase.  After the two phases end, the jury meets in
  conference to create a list of candidates. From this list a shortlist
  of three nominees is selected for the main award. The winner of the
  Spiel des Jahres award is elected the evening before the announcement
  of the award.
Judgment Criteria The nominees for the main award and the special
  awards are judged on the following aspects:

Game idea (originality, playability, play value)
Rules design
  (structure, clarity, understandability)
Layout and presentation (box,
  game board, rules)
Design (features, workmanship)

So the jury are pretty powerful as far as I can make out.  But hopefully unbiased!


text:
How do you count troops in Shogun when they fall off the tower?
We have a problem regarding how to count the troops that fall from the tower in every battle. From what we understood from the English and Spanish rulebooks, there is no way a player could get more troops that he throw in the tower. Also, from what we understood, green defends if there is no revolt mark. (The revolt mark is another topic!). But what happen if red has 4, yellow has 2 and, after throwing, fall 6 reds and 3 yellows? All are count and red receive 3? What about greens (somewhere said that green die first?) or the max used is the max throwed inside the tower?

After looking over the rulebook again, I see a potential confusion arising from the use of the words "participating armies", but I think it's resolvable.  In "General Rules for the Battle Tower":

All battles are fought with the aid of the battle tower. A player
  takes all participating armies (colored cubes of the attacker and
  defender) and throws them into the tower together with all cubes lying
  in the tower tray at the start of the battle. In the process, some of
  these cubes will remain in the tower, and some that were already
  inside the tower will fall out into the tray, thus producing a chance result.

And a little further on in "Battle Results and Consequences":

To determine the outcome of the battle, players count up the number of
  attacking and defending armies that come out into the tower tray. The
  side with the most armies in the tray wins. Armies not participating
  in the battle are disregarded and remain lying in the tray.

I think it's clear from these paragraphs, taken in combination, that other appropriately coloured cubes, apart
from the ones thrown in, can become part of the "participating armies" and contribute to the outcome of the battle; a "chance result" is the intended outcome.  "Armies not participating in the battle" doesn't mean "cubes that weren't thrown into the tower just now", it just means "cubes of the wrong colours".
As for the green cubes, the rules say:

If there are no revolt markers in the defender's province, all farmer
  armies in the tower tray count for the defender. (After a battle that
  includes farmers, all green cubes in the tray are returned to the
  farmer supply. If farmers are not involved in the battle, the green
  cubes remain in the tray.)

So if 6 reds and 3 yellows fall out then red is probably going to win the battle, unless a lot of defending green cubes fell out too!  All the yellow and green cubes are returned to their respective supplies, and the same number of red armies also go to their supply.  Any remaining (victorious!) red cubes will be placed in the contested province.

+1 great answer. The rulebook could contain further clarification about how this work, since it's a common thing that after a few rounds you get more troops that you use for the battle.

After diggin a lot on the BBG forums I found out something that looks like the answers. According to the game manual, there is no clarification about this. So the only thing to come up with this, is that the number of troops that fell of the tower, are the number of troops you return to your province (taking into account loses and things like that).
So yes, you can gain more troops that the one you thrown into the tower.
In my example, you receive 3 troops. or In the thread example, you use 1 troop, and receive 4 from the tower. So all troops are taking into account, no matter how much did you put on the tower.

I didn't think it was controversial that you could get more troops out of the tower than you put in; but I'll check the rulebook to see!  I agree with your answer anyway.


text:
Do other creatures have to survive to deal damage back to Alpha Brawl's target?
When Alpha Brawl is played, after the target creature deals damage to the opponents creatures, do only the ones that survive do damage back?

Creatures dealt lethal damage will still deal their damage back to Alpha Brawl's target.
From the Oracle rulings, which you can see on the card's Gatherer page:

1/22/2011   The two parts of Alpha Brawl's effect happen sequentially: first the targeted creature deals damage, then the other creatures deal damage. State-based actions aren't checked in the middle, so creatures that are dealt lethal damage by the targeted creature will still deal damage.

Why does it work the way it does? Because, in Magic, you carry out the instructions on a card sequentially, but you also do all the actions as one event, and only check for state-based actions and triggers afterward. "This creature took so much damage that it's going to the graveyard now" is a state-based action.
Note also that all creatures killed by Alpha Brawl will go to the graveyard at the same time.

The ruling is right there on gatherer:

The two parts of Alpha Brawl's effect happen sequentially: first the
  targeted creature deals damage, then the other creatures deal damage.
  State-based actions aren't checked in the middle, so creatures that
  are dealt lethal damage by the targeted creature will still deal
  damage.

All the opponent's creatures will deal damage back, regardless of whether or not they die.


text:
How can I become a better Connect Four player?
I am good player at Connect Four and I want to become better.
One suggestion I found is:

The ideal position is to have two potential connect-fours that need a final checker on two spaces that are on top of each other. This will usually lead to a victory, because you can threaten in the first space. If the opponent fails to block, you win. If the opponent blocks, you play on top to win in the next space. A simple way to set this up is to make a "7" with your checkers, such that finishing the horizontal or diagonal connect-four on the right will be two spaces on top of each other.

Are there any other tips for improving my Connect Four play?

Your last paragraph is literally word-for-word from the last suggestion at this website http://boardgames.about.com/od/strategygames/a/How-To-Win-At-Connect-4.htm. You should site any sources you use in your question.

Is it possible to become better at playing a solved game?

@Tacroy, Yes, by actually learning the solution & then remembering it at game time.

@Tacroy - Of course. Just because it's been solved doesn't mean that you've solved it (or can solve it), or that your opponent has perfect play.

Connect 4 is a solved game.  Memorize the solution, and you should be able to win every single time.
Go to the following resource
http://www.connectfour.net/Files/connect4.pdf
I came to that link from The Wikipedia article, so in case the link ever breaks, you should be able to find another by searching for the "connect 4 solution"
That article has a lot of strategic analysis about connect 4, and Even if you can't memorize the solved strategy perfectly, you should be able to glean a lot of good strategic practices from section 3 which is titled Some Strategic Rules for Connect-Four

Yes, the link has become outdated.

Control center column immediately when you can. Generally if you can control the 2 very center slot then you are in a very very good position to win.

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


text:
In the Great Dalmuti, should I be attempting to improve my seat position or shoot for the win?
The Great Dalmuti is a game where you attempt to get rid of your hand, a climbing card game like Tien len or Asshole. The deck consists of 80 cards, with different point values. There is one '1', two '2's, three '3's, ..., twelve '12's and two wilds that are '13' unless played with any other card. Rounds consist of the Great Dalmuti or whomever won the last trick laying down any number of cards with the same value. Players in clockwise order can either 'pass' or play the same number of cards as the previous player but of a lower value (i.e. if the first player played three '10' value cards, the next player could play three '9', three '8', etc.), or by playing a larger set of the same value as the previous set of cards.
When a player has played the last card from their hand, they score one point for each person they beat, with the last person scoring zero. Going out first or second (becoming the Greater or Lesser Dalmuti) gives another privilege: at the start of the next round, the Dalmutis receive the one or two best cards from the Peons (the two players who went out last), while returning any cards from their hand. (The Greater Dalmuti swaps two cards, the Lesser Dalmuti one.) This gives the Dalmutis significantly better hands: they get better cards, and can get rid of singletons that would slow down their hands. It is very important not to go out last, or second to last.
If you are playing a game to some point value that is quite a few rounds away (lets say 10 or more), what should be your strategy for improving your score? How can you determine if you have a hand that can hold onto control of enough rounds to get rid of your high value cards (in other words, how can you determine if by go off during a turn you will likely improve your seat position or maintain it, instead of ending up going out last).
How do you know when to take control, and attempt to get out of the game?
Does the strategy of shooting for first seat get easier/harder with more/less players?

I don't understand -- every hand you're trying to go out as soon as possible, as that gets you the highest score AND the best position for next hand.  So the strategy for scoring more is the same as for going for a better seat.  Perhaps you're asking when you should be targetting a particular player (trying to prevent them from going out) as they are in the lead rather than trying to go out yourself?

The two big tricks to figuring out when you can go out are counting cards and figuring out how your cards will play.
What's in your hand?
Figure out where your "losers" are in your hand - sets where you will be unable to take control: middle triples, pairs, singletons, etc. where you have no high set to establish control. These are the cards that you play dead last. It's possible to have two losers in the same number, e.g. a pair of 12s and a pair of 11s (with no other pairs to take control after you've played those). Similarly, determine if you have any "winners" - card combinations that you think nobody can beat (a triple in threes or fours, a pair of twos or threes, etc.). Finally, look at your hand and see how many middle-rank sets you have - cards you can slip into somebody else's play, or that you can slip into the middle of your own plays as you're going out.
Note that the definition of "winners," "losers," and "middle sets" will change as cards are played; your triple seven starts as a middle set, but as you see the sixes, fives, fours, and threes get played, they will become a winner. I usually keep track of all of the cards rank six or better as they're played, but if your memory is better than mine, you'll keep track of every card played, along with good guesses of who can hold the remaining cards. (It's usually a bad idea to split a set of cards into multiple smaller sets, so if somebody plays a single six, they're almost certainly out of sixes.)
A good enough hand
You can go out when you have:

At most one loser (which you'll play last)
Middle sets that you can slip in before playing your winners for that set

Ideally, have some powerful middle sets: they may not be winners, but nobody wants to expend their own winners to top them yet.

Enough winners to get all of your middle sets out
Luck: that your winners actually are winners, or that the other players don't care to top them at the moment you play them.

When all's said and done, the distribution of the cards between other players will make or break your attempt to go out. If the cards went weird, or some player tops your triple twelve with a triple nine (preventing you from playing your own triple nine that's a middle set for you), or someone topped your triple three with a triple one when all you have left is your last loser, then all you can do is pick up the pieces and hope next round will go better.
Going from the bottom to the top
Jumping from a low position to a high one takes a very lucky hand, and other players that don't care enough to play their high cards early on. As Hackworth says, it takes some large sets of cards, and the ability to gain control. Your "winners" are sets that are 4+ cards apiece, and you have more than one of them. You take control (while hoping against hope that nobody is willing to top your pitiful pair of sixes!), lay down your monster sets, and take your crown.

Unfortunately, it's a question of feel. After playing many hands of this (a long time ago) and being a lifetime player of games like Asshole - you just know when you can permit yourself to go for the gold, instead of the silver.
I would play conservatively and try and feel out the other leaders and then go for it if I thought their hands were relatively weak. But, in reality, this usually means one or two hands and, as Hackworth said, it's a game with incomplete information - whatever you do, it's going to be risky.

Focus on moving your position up, seldom is a hand good enough to jump to up the top spot from a late position.
Note is you have a poor hand, you will want to focus on preventing some one below you from passing you.
This generally means not risking your good cards to challenge the early players.  To prevent your immediate superior and those below you from getting the lead.
Certainly fewer player in the game makes it harder to move up multiple places.  With more than 7 and/or particularly good cards feel free to shoot for moving up more than one position.
Note that Dalumuti is meant to play for several deals, moving up slowly is best way to get to the drivers seat.  More aggressive play can quickly send you to the bottom.

You cannot know because TGD is an incomplete-information game
Most you can do is look at your cards and try to develop a plan, watch the round as it unfolds, maybe try to analyze your opponents' play style much like in poker.
One way to improve your seat order by strategy is to wait for the top seater(s) to make their play and to not waste your good cards by trying to force a win from any hand.
Try to get rid of low value singles as often as possible, but without expending too many really good cards. That also depends on luck of course, such as when you get first play because the person to the right finished and nobody outbid his/her last play. Let other players play their 2 and 3 card combos and don't get too involved in those bidding wars.
Eventually, when you feel the time is right, you take first play by using some of your strong cards and try to overwhelm the remaining opponents with large sets of low value cards. Keep at least one strong card/card combo for each chain of low value combos you can get rid of. Try to remain the first to play and therefore to determine which combo size is going to be played.
The amount of players should not matter much - as the player count changes, everybody's chance of getting good/bad hands changes accordingly. Even the top seaters should not expect a disproportionate advantage or disadvantage because of player count, because the average hand quality stays the same overall. The card pool stays the same after all.
As for shooting for the win from a low seat position, for me that was always a matter of luck, like getting 2 5+ card combos and some really high cards to take first play.

This statement is incorrect, "Even the top seaters should not expect a disproportionate advantage or disadvantage because of player count, because the average hand quality stays the same overall." Due to taxation, if there are fewer players the odds that the '1', '2', and other low value cards being in either the the top 2 players hands or the bottom two players hands changes. In 5 player the King, has a 2/5 chance of having the '1' card. In a 7 player game, he only has a 2/7 chance of having the '1'.More players decrease,the odds that both jokers go to the same player blocking tax.


text:
Gomoku, is it possible to not be able to make a legal move?
On a 11 across 12 down Gomoku board with the following conditions:

A player must make a move within 3 spaces of an opponent's piece.
If a player can't make a move that player loses.

Is it possible to force the above, given the conditions?

I have never heard of this rule, and an 11x12 board is a non-standard size. Do you have a reference for this rule?

This sounds like a theoretical research question in m,n,k-games. In which case, I'm not sure you will find a very satisfactory answer here.

Yes, it is possible for such a condition to happen, though I'm not sure what you mean by "force." It is possible because it is possible to create a board-state in which neither player has won the game, but the entire board is filled. A simple example of such a state is the following: imagine a filled 11x12 which follows the pattern:
WWBBWWBBWWBB

BBWWBBWWBBWW

WWBBWWBBWWBB

BBWWBBWWBBWW

Obviously, neither player has won the game, and since white and black each have an equal number of stones on the board, it is not impossible to reach such a board state. I have therefore shown that it is possible to reach a board-state in which one player cannot make a legal move. You can also show this for non-full boards by applying the rule of three and three and the rule of four and four.


text:
Are these "temporary defense gained by discarding cards" markers?
I just got the Race for the Galaxy: The Brink of War expansion, which I haven't played yet. It comes with some additional Takeover markers. These two markers look like "temporary defense gained by discarding cards" markers:

I can't find the card that gives this power. The rulebook states they are for Rebel Pact:

Two counters are supplied to track a player’s total possible Military on
  defense (for use with Rebel Pact).

But Rebel Pact is part of the Rebel vs. Imperium expansion. In Settle phase, it gives

+2 defense against a [takeover] for each... (Rebel military world) in your tableau; +1 defense for each other [military world]

and the Rebel vs. Imperium expansion already comes with markers for tracking Rebel Pacts defense:

The Rebel Pact provides 2 Military for each Rebel military world
   and 1 Military for each non-Rebel military world in a player’s
   tableau at the start of Settle, when defending against takeovers.

What card are these markers used with? What do they mean?

According to the Rulebook, next to a picture of these markers:

Two counters are supplied to track a player’s total possible Military on
  defense (for use with Rebel Pact).

These markers are for use on your military track to show you (and your opponents) your potential maximum defense if you count both your defensive bonus from Rebel Pact and all your sources of temporary Military (denoted by the discard symbol on the token).
Page 8 of the rulebook has an illustration.

I don't think this is it. I've edited my question to include reasons I think the rulebook is wrong.

I think that the tokens that only show the Rebel Pact token are to be placed to show what your defense would be if you didn't use any of your extra discard-for-military powers, while the tokens in question show your maximum defense if you used all of your discard-for-military powers.


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How will using counters to represent money instead of facedown cards change the game?
We've played several games of Bohnanza as a family, and one thing I quickly realized was how important it is to keep an eye on what cards have been taken out of the game as money for harvesting. Usually the cocoa and garden beans, as they are worth the same number of coins as beans, disappear from the game fairly early and never show up again. This makes the second time through the deck fairly different, and the third time is drastically different since so many cards are gone.
This got me thinking: How would the game change if we used counters to represent obtained money instead of facedown cards? It would obviously keep the game more consistent across rounds, leading to less variation and a more continuous game.
Would doing so 'ruin' the game? Are there any other consequences I should be aware of? What other possible variations are there on how to keep score?

It would sort of ruin the game for me, I think.  One of the things I like about Bohnanza is that superficially it's a pretty easy game: certainly you can bring it out with non-gamery types or children and it will be a hit, due to the colourful cards and the social aspect of the trading.
However, there are strategic undercurrents to Bohnanza that set it apart from, I don't know, Uno and the like.  And one of the main ones is the fact that, if you're paying attention, you can realize that, as the game progresses, the value of beans is changing as cards leave play to become gold coins.  If you are paying more attention than other players, you can be planting the most advantageous beans remaining while they carelessly plant beans most of whose brethren are sitting in people's coin piles.
If you remove the facedown cards rule, you still have a fun game, but I think it's a game that's almost totally ruled by charisma.  If you're the sort of person that people like trading with, you'll probably win.  (The ladies in our group are less cutthroat than the guys, and quite often do very well at Bohnanza, simply because we are obviously checking values of beans and saying "no, no, that's not a very good trade for me, I'd need another card" - so they stop trading with us!)  So it makes me much happier that there's an element to the game which allows good sense of which beans are in and out of the deck at any given point to make a profit.  I like that having some smarts can allow you to maximise your chances against the luck of the draw.
Having said that, Bohnanza is above all a supremely fun game, and when I sit down to it I quite often don't bother to obsessively card count, or go into "analysis paralysis" over my moves.  You could change the money-representing mechanism and I'm sure I'd still enjoy Bohnanza about the same: I'd be sad that the potential for some cunning and counting had disappeared, on some level, too though.
One final thing that you want to watch for is that the game will last a lot longer if cards aren't being removed from the deck in each pass.  I really like the fact that the first pass is a pretty leisurely affair, while by the third pass people are saying "holy moley, is the game that close to finishing?"  It adds a lot of tension to proceedings.  In fact, the ability to cash in or to hold up from cashing is a way that players have to control the pace of the game and the constituency of the deck: that's another way that changing the rules would adversely effect players' chances of being "clever" in the game!
In short, I think Bohnanza is a spectacularly well-designed game with a lot of depths that you might not notice on your first few games - as you'd expect from the great Uwe Rosenberg.  I personally wouldn't tinker with it, I think it would lose a lot.  But if you want a longer, more carefree, more socially-oriented game then it could be worth a try anyway!

Totally agree with above answer. If you really don't like using face down cards as coins you can still use real coins as long as you remove the appropriate number of cards from the pool. But then you're doing stuff twice...


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What are the most busted cards in Agricola?
There's quite a few Occupations in Agricola that elicit a traumatized shudder from hardened Agricola players.  I'm thinking of cards like the Taster, which basically allows one player to be in a position BETTER than being starting player during any round of the game, for the low low cost of 1 food per round.  I've heard that a lot of groups have physically removed the Taster from their set, rather than have to deal with the imbalance it creates.
Having said that, I've had very tight games both playing and playing against the Taster, and I completely crushed an inexperienced player who laid an early Taster in a 5-player game a few days ago, so I'm not TOO worried about "busted" cards.  Even so...
Have any cards been played in one of your Agricola games that seemed to tip the balance too far in favour of one player, too quickly?  In our group, we groan when we see the Field Watchman (such a no-brainer) and the Wet Nurse; cards whose value is just a little bit too transparent.  What about your group?
Also, Minor Improvements tend to be a little bit better balanced on the whole (coming with costs and limitations as they do), but I'm sure some of them are a LOT better than others.  Any suggestions?  I'm never disappointed to have a plough of some kind among my opening seven...

It is worth noting that the Ratcatcher wasn't banned from Play Agricola because of the brokenness rather they felt it was too aggressive and direct conflict card (not that it can be very powerful).
Taster (I apologize it's not the original comment about the fix) was officially rebalanced at two food per use. I don't know how this affects its standings but it must have some effect.

I'm playing an online game right now on an iPad and I just played the Ratcatcher.  I don't really see how it isn't broken - it costs one action to effectively take 2 actions away from every other player.  That's an astonishing swing in your favour for an unbelievably small amount of effort, IMO - there isn't even any competition for Occupation spaces by the time you want to play the Ratcatcher...

Field Watchman, Head of the Family, and Braggart.
In statistics gathered from about 2000 games that used drafting, these occupations were picked on average earliest by the player who won the game.  See this forum post for the full details, and a list of the first chosen minor improvements too.
Edit: It turns out that several occupations are not included in these results as they were voted too overpowered by the game participants.  These are:

Ratcatcher
Taster
Chamberlain
Lover
Wet Nurse

Ooh yeah, the Braggart.  Pretty much balanced in the basic game, completely ludicrous in Farmers of the Moor, after the number of available Major Improvements rises from 10 to 24!

I've looked over those statistics and notice that most of the Occupations I think of as most busted (e.g. the Taster, which does everything Head of the Family does and more, albeit at a nominal cost) are not even on the list!  What's the story here?  Are some of the Occupations not used in these drafts?

We include both Taster and Wet Nurse, but with a modified cost of 2f for the Taster, and 2f per newborn for the Wet Nurse. That way, both are still good to have, but nowhere near OP.
In turn, it's very easy to rely on the Braggart to win, even in the basic game.
In FotM, you've got to ban not only the Braggart, but also the Stonecutter.

Ratcatcher ... just too powerful.
Taster ... changes the basic mechanic of the game, puts the people in 4 or 5 turn order in a really bad spot.
Mail Coach Driver ... messes with people as much as the Taster! Everyone will have to modify their strategy accordingly.

I guess the cards "I" think are broken are the ones that change the game FOR EVERYONE, not holder of the card. The Lover and Wet Nurse are good, but I can get a good card of my own and still compete.

I think that's an interesting metric for deciding if a card is "inappropriate" - Agricola is superficially a game of "just doing your own thing", so the very rare cards that directly impede other players from doing their thing seem excessively brutal and out-of-place.  On the other hand, there's an argument that attacking all the other players paints a big target on your head in a way that a "normal" powerful Occupation doesn't...  I can understand less competitive playgroups really despising the cards you've listed though, +1.

Without any exposure to game forums or outside advice, our play group outright banned Taster, Chamberlain, and Maypole after playing dozens of games with various combinations of the EIKZ decks.  Taster and Chamberlain were clearly overpowered - the latter being an almost guaranteed win.  Maypole led to poor sportsmanship, where opponents would intentionally bump the table to knock over the upright wooden fence piece "pole." Ratcatcher and Lover are frowned upon, but we allow them.
We probably should ban Braggart in Moors, as it often results in blowouts.
Best regards

All sensible moves.  I've beaten the Chamberlain and the Taster quite a few times.  I don't think I could beat a player at or near my skill level with the Chamberlain or Taster, though.

Our group is quite diverse in skill, as well.  The deathknell for Chamberlain rang out when our least experienced player used it in a game and won handily.  She was as surprised as the rest of us, as her board up until the last few turns had not been great.  Thank you for your response.

Well, basically, the Chamberlain removes any constraints on your ability to develop your position in the late game, doesn't he? I'm always a bit offended by Occupations that are amazing even if you don't play them early - having to fight for the Occupation square is part of what keeps the stronger one balanced. It seems absurd that the Chief comes with an extra cost to balance out his potential for a final-turn points swing (both extra food and the possibility that somebody else will have the Chief's Daughter!) but no one thought to curb the Chamberlain's power...

With maypole, if someone else knocks it over, don't you automatically get the points (as 'the player' did not knock it over)

This is the list of card I've came across as being banned:

E occ Ratcatcher
E minor Wooden Hut Extension
E occ Braggart
I occ Chamberlain
I occ Taster
K occ Lover
K occ Wet Nurse
K minor Reed Hut
K minor Broom
G occ Late Sleeper
Z occ Mail Coach Driver
O minor Guest Worker
Z minor Maypole
Z occ Herald
C occ Fortune Teller

I can't believe nobody mentioned the axe. In 2 player it's balanced, 3 player gets pretty great, 4/5 player where you can get the needed stone + additional things on the first move it gets nuts!  I think our group will ban it in 4/5 player games from now on. We just had a mini tournament and Axe ruled in every game it came up

Watch this game. Having Axe does not guarantee a win. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk378BASqXk

I think the biggest mistake when card balance is discussed is people forget that playing an occupation costs 1 action + 1-2 food. With that in mind, a lot of the "broken" cards become reasonable.
Ratcatcher: You're giving up a stage 1 action + food so that everyone else loses 2 actions much later down the road. Earlier actions are more important so.......
Wet Nurse: You're using 2 actions 1 food to play the nurse and build a room as opposed to building a room and using the family growth space (which costs no food and lets you build a minor improvement). You have to build at least 2 rooms to come out ahead on this one. If you save up resources to build them in one go, the people who settle for building 1 room are getting that 3rd family member before you. If you build 1 room at a time that's an another action spent on rooms. Don't think this one is broken at all.
Chamberlain: The most overblown of the broken cards in my opinion. You get access to the later spots 2 rounds before everyone else. The only ones that really matter are Family Growth w/o room & Plow+Sow. Considering you're giving up a food/action for these and leaving them uncontested once they come up for everyone else, the card isn't so busted.
Mail Coach Driver: More annoying than overpowered. I'd put this in the same category as the Ratcatcher. Not broken, just a bummer for everyone to deal with.
The only card I'd truly call broken is the taster. The benefit is obscene for its negligible cost. I'll echo the other guy's opinion on why The Chief is given such a huge cost when much more powerful cards are cheaper.
Another that is situationally broken is the Braggart. Depending on the improvements you draw he's either worthless or an instant game winner. If a player gets the Braggart then drafts a bunch of free or cheap improvements, you might as well just call the game before the first turn.

You are missing a HUGE benefit of Wet Nurse. Not only do you get a child without using an action on family growth; you can get a child earlier in the game, before family growth is even an option. So you will have 3 family members while everyone else has 2.

How much earlier though? How many rounds are realistically between building your first room and family growth? If you rush to play the nurse and build that first room several rounds before family growth, you're going to be hurting for food and missing out on an early fireplace or hearth.
Wet Nurse does provide a benefit, as it should. I just don't think it's broken. You have to look at the cost of playing an occupation plus what you're giving up to realistically fulfill it's conditions. Given that, I don't think the Wet Nurse is anywhere near the Taster or Braggart in terms of brokeness.


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Small World: Seafaring Necromancer!
We played a 6-player game of Small World with the Necromancer Island expansion and a lot of fun it was too.  Our Necromancer pulled off a narrow win by getting his 14th ghost onto the map at the very end of the final turn, it doesn't get much more climactic than that!
Part of the Necromancer's success of course was getting himself into a position where it was nearly impossible for the other players to effectively oust him from the map; and in part he achieved this by investing in Seafaring, and taking both one of the map-edge sea regions... and also the lake surrounding Necromancer Island.
The thing is, the rules are slightly unclear about how Seafaring interacts with the Necromancer Island expansion.  Necromancer Island itself does not count as a normal board region, and the rules explicitly state that the island's "Lake Region is immune to other players (even Seafaring ones)".
So does that mean that, with the Necromancer's Island expansion in play, the central Lake region is completely out of bounds to Seafaring races?  Or out of bounds to other Seafaring races, but available for conquest by a Seafaring Necromancer?  Or that the Lake region can be conquered by Seafaring as usual, but the island is unconquerable (and can still attack territories bordering the lake even if the lake is occupied)?
I ruled on the night that the Necromancer could conquer his own Lake... if only because the Seafaring power seems pathetically bad in a Necromancer Island game otherwise!  But it's not at all clear to me that it's the right answer.  If anyone knows of, or can hazard a guess at, an official ruling, it would be much appreciated!

My Necromancer Island expansion has sat in shrinkwrap, mocking me throughout NaNoWriMo. Now I really want to play! I'll give you a real answer after I've had a chance to examine the thing.

I'm still angling to get an "official ruling" on this at the BGG forums, but in the meantime, Pat's answer looks likely to be correct!

While not explicitly stated, it seems clear to me that the lake region no longer exists outside of Necromancer Island.
See the example of play on the smallworld-game website.  There is also a statement from the publisher on BGG agreeing to the statement, "Seafaring is hosed"
Reminder - the Necromancer only checks for victory on his own turn, not the other players.  He cannot spawn his way to victory on other players turns.

I agree that there's definitely an adjacency problem that arises if the Lake region continues to exist and it is occupied by a (non-Necromancer) Seafaring race... as then the Necromancer has to attack "through" an occupied region to be able to do ANYTHING from his island!  Which would be a bit clumsy.  Less of a problem if it's the Necromancer who is Seafaring, but certainly enough to give me pause.

@thesunneversets The rules state that "His(The necromancer's) Border Regions are those surrounding the central Lake Region" so it seems that the Lake becomes more akin to an off board location than an actual region.

ludwig I think I agree that that's the intention, but it doesn't seem like it was necessary to hose Seafaring to make the Necromancer work; as long as he can't be blockaded in under any circumstances, and is long as his Island piece doesn't cover up so much of the Lake that there is no room for anything else to be there!


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Without breaking the game, how can I fix Memoir 44's problem with having no cards to order units in a certain section?
I find Memoir 44 very interesting and exciting, but it seems everyone I introduce it to has the same gripe. They (and I) don't like having a unit getting pummeled by the opposing force without being able to fight back. It doesn't fit in with the game's realistic/historical feel, and/or it weakens the game's element of strategy.
I'm not sure how to fix this issue with a rule modification without undermining some of the basic elements of the game like the luck of the draw.

BattleLore, which also uses the Command and Colors system, has a "battle back" rule. Perhaps the rule could be adapted like so:

Fight Back
When an Infantry or Armor unit is attacked in close combat, a player may choose to have the attacked unit Fight Back if it did not retreat and was not eliminated. Armor units, however, may not Fight Back if the attacking unit is Infantry. To Fight Back, roll the appropriate number of dice, checking for unit, terrain, and other effects. Resolve combat as usual. A unit that Fights Back may not Take Ground or Armor Overrun afterward even if the attacking unit retreats or is eliminated.
Only one round of fighting back may occur per attack order (e.g., the attacking unit can't "fight back" after having attacked, even if the target fights back). A unit may, however, fight back more than once in a turn if it is attacked by multiple units in close combat (once for each unit that attacked it in close combat).
The Fight Back tactic may neither be used against or by Aircraft. Air Checks are resolved as usual.

It seems reasonable to eliminate the restriction preventing a unit from fighting back unless it has a friendly unit adjacent to it (one example of "bold" morale in BattleLore) because close combat is much less common in Memoir 44 than the equivalent in BattleLore.
It also seems realistic. Units would not always shoot back when taking fire from the enemy (e.g., seeking to gain ground, keeping cover, pinned down, saving ammo, or orders). However, when in close combat, it becomes fight-or-die and (depending on the scale of distance represented by a hex) ammo becomes less of a question (knives, bayonets, fistfights, or picking up ammo from fallen soldiers). Tanks would have a much more difficult time fighting back when attacked by soldiers, and artillery would be difficult to aim quickly and safely enough in the duress of close combat.

If you're wondering "Why did he ask the question if he had an answer?", I'm not sure how much this rule would have an effect on the other mechanics of the game. This isn't necessarily the best solution, and I'd love to hear other gamers' points of view. If you think it's a good solution that doesn't break the game, please vote it up and/or comment. If you see flaws, please comment and let me know.

I also thought of this answer after I had had a couple answers already.

It sure is frustrating when this happens to one or more sections of an army, I agree. I wonder though, if it would actually decrease historical realism if it was somehow removed or mitigated.  The lack of order cards in a certain section could be analogous to:

The commander losing radio contact with his troops.  He is then unable to tell them when or where to fight back.
A unit experiencing mechanical difficulties and is unable to move or return fire.
A unit having run out of ammunition.

I personally like this element of the game.  If you know your opponent doesn't have cards for a section then pounce on it.  Also changing these rules would take away from the historical advantage/disadvantage of sides in terms of number of commands cards.
Here are a couple of ideas I could come up with:

Play a card and instead of doing what the card says, activate one unit in the section of your choice
Do not play a card and have a rule saying you can activate one unit in the section of your choice.
Have a rule where you can skip your turn and instead discard and replace any number of command cards of your choice.
Have a rule where you can play any card or no card and instead of doing what the card says allow 1 or 2 units to a section of your choice to retreat 1 or 2 spots to a more defensive position and not allow any forward movement or attacking.


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Do you place the fairy before or after scoring a completed road/city/cloister?
With The Princess and the Dragon expansion for Carcassonne, can I place a tile to complete one of my features, and then move the fairy in to it for the bonus 3 points, or are you supposed to score the city, road, or cloister before placing the fairy?

According to the rules:

Whenever a player places no follower on his turn, he may, instead, place the fairy on any tile where he has one of his followers.

It seems that fairy placement takes the place of follower placement, and happens at the same time. Since follower placement happens before scoring, you place the fairy before scoring the completed feature

More generally fairy movement is an alternative to (and takes place at the same point in the game as) figure placement. After placing his tile for the turn, a player may choose one of:

deploy one figure into a feature on the land tile just placed (if the dragon isn’t already on the tile because of volcano placement);
deploy one follower to any tile on the board if the just-placed tile has a magic gate symbol;
move the fairy to any tile on which he (already) has a follower (even if player has no pieces left or legal placements for them); or
place a barn, on a just-formed junction of four field segments in a field without a barn.

This is followed by dragon movement and scoring.

This is helpful because I came here for the same question about whether the fairy can be moved before dragon movement.


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Where can I get these Carcassone expansions?
Where can I find the mini-expansions for Carcassonne? I've seen there are several such as "The Cathars" and "Crop Circles" but don't know where to get them, my local board game store doesn't have them.

First off, the expansions you have listed are official.  Depending on which expansion you're trying to find (and which print run) may be a little challenging:

The Cathars (BGG) (German: Die Katharer) was originally released in the German magazine "Spielbox", and then again in the set "Der Carcassonne Almanach".  It was re-released in the US as part of the "Cult, Siege and Creativity" set (although it was renamed to the "Siege" in the set, explaining why you may have had a hard time finding it, and apparently the artwork was altered for the US release as well).
Starting in 2010, the Crop Circles (BGG) (German: Die Kornkreise) can be found in German versions of the base game.  I'm guessing it will be released in an anthology set (like "Cult, Siege and Creativity") at some point, but that's speculation on my part.

@mystery-downvoter - I'm sorry you didn't like my answer.  Was there anything incorrect or confusing about it?

Update: Crop Circles is now part of the minis expansion. You get one tile of it per mini expansion you buy.

Rio Grande Games is supposedly going to start carrying the Crop Circles expansion sometime this year, but it doesn't appear to be there yet.  The Cathars is available from them as part of Cult, Siege, and Creativity.

You can buy them at various online stores. A look at the boardgamegeek.com entries for them will lead you quickly to some available retailers, as well as ebay sales of them. Further, BGG has a sales system which allows gamers to sell used supplements. Many other online sources are available, as well, and many of those advertise on BGG.
Here's a partial list with the BGG links...

The River
King & Scout
Die Katharer
The Count
River II
Mini Expansion
Cult, Siege and Creativity
Der Tunnel

You can purchase most of the official expansions, mini-expansions and replacement parts (individual meeples, tiles, etc.) at http://www.cundco.de/ ... it's all just in German though! :(


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Is there another good 3 player variant of Canasta?
The only 3 player variant of Canasta that I know is Cutthroat Canasta.  Are there any other good 3 player variations?

Hand and Foot
While I'm not a huge fan of this variant, everyone else in my family is and it is now the only version of canasta played regularly for us.  There are a lot of slightly different rules set out there, I've linked to the one that seems to resemble the rules my family uses.
The main difference for Hand and Foot is that each player is dealt 2 Hands (called a Hand and a Foot).  The player only uses the "Hand" to start.  When they drain the Hand of cards, they may immediately pick up the "Foot" and continue the turn they are on.  Timing the pickup of your Foot is the key to the game.
Any number of players is well supported, we play with three often.  Four decks will give you a nice game of Hand and Foot for three players.
My objection to this variant is that you are really dependent on what is in your "Foot" each round.  For me, it introduces a larger luck factor than I prefer to play with.  This leads to more games with large differences in score which I don't find enjoyable.  It's definitely worth a try to see if it is your cup of tea.