I wasn't really sure what to write about yesterday anyway. And to be honest, I'm not really sure what to write about right now, either. Oh, maybe I'll talk about cards. I made a video on an Atari ST game imaginatively called Cards, which will be releasing in the next couple of weeks, and doing so got me looking up some card games that I remember I used to play, particularly when I was at my grandparents' house. (The ST game also taught me how to play Cribbage, which I'd never come across before, but now really like!)

Either my Nan or my Grandad taught me to play a fair few card games, including some variation of Rummy (I'm not sure which one offhand as there seem to be about a million), along with several forms of Patience (or "Solitaire", if you prefer.)

I, of course, learned how to play what I now know as Klondike Solitaire as one of the first ones. I wonder why this one became one of the most popular games? Still, yes, I learned how to play that pretty early on. What I find slightly more interesting are two completely different solitaire games that I learned around the same time.

The first of these I knew as "Clock Patience". This involves dealing the pack face-down to make a "clock face" with a single "hand" in the middle. You end up with thirteen piles of four cards each, and your aim is to create the "clock", with A-Q acting as the numbers 1-12 and K acting as the "hand" in the middle. After dealing the cards, you draw the top card of the middle pile, then place it underneath the appropriate "clock" position, then turn over the top card of the same pile. You then repeat the process until you have either completed the "clock" or turned over four Kings; if the latter happens first, you lose. It's an entirely luck-based game with an apparent exact 1 in 13 chance of being able to win, but I always found the aesthetic aspect of it to be enormously pleasing.

The second unusual solitaire game I learned was known as Elevens. Here, you deal 9 cards onto the table in a 3×3 arrangement. You then look for either pairs of cards that add up to 11, or the J-Q-K sequence. When you have found one, you draw new cards from those that remain in your hand and put them over the pair or sequence, thereby updating the board. Your aim is to get rid of all the cards in your hand. Again, I think this is probably mostly luck-based, but there is at least a bit of brainpower involved in adding things up and spotting the sequences. I used to like this game because it was quick and simple: a lot easier to set up than Klondike, took up less space than Clock Patience, and very fast to play. I recall deliberately trying to clear a game of Elevens as quickly as possible for an additional challenge. Lots of fun.

Card games are fun for the tactile element, though it's hard to beat the convenience factor of playing on computer — particularly for games like Cribbage, where the scoring can get quite complicated. One of the nice things about those three forms of solitaire that I learned, though, is that they're all pretty straightforward to play without needing to make complex calculations or check your "working" as you go. I remember they used to keep me busy in a time before portable games consoles (or being allowed to take my SNES with me!), along with playing games like "Dots and Boxes" and "OXO" with my Nan.

"OXO" you say? Draw a big grid, place X's and O's on it anywhere, your choice. If you complete the word "OXO" you get a point. Deep strategy! Not really. But I found it fun.

There we go, a post. Happy now? I'm off to get some lunch.

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The post #oneaday Day 858: Long rest appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.