Farah Khan Paper 2 (Game Analysis B)

Go Fish
Culture
Go Fish is a simple card that is taught to young children in the United States. Its exact origin is unknown, but it is similar to a game called Happy Families, exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and published by John Jaques II of London. Anyone can play the game, usually only young children play it because its so simple. They may play for fun amongst themselves or in a school setting where teachers are hoping to teach them skills in memory, matching, and deduction.

Play
Go fish works with at least 2 players, preferably 3-6 players, arranged in a circle. Its a low-pressure game due to its simplicity, but young children can get very upset if they keep losing their cards before their turn. Emotions can get a little higher when a player is close too winning, but theres nothing to be done.

Equipment
The game is played with a standard 52-card poker deck.

Definitions
Rank Value of the card from Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. Suit A category of a card. Hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. Each suit as one of each rank. Pair Any two cards that have the same number or face. Pool The stack of cards in the middle, which is not in anybodys hand. Query When a player asks another player for a card of the same rank, in order to make a pair.

Goal-Oriented Rules
1. A dealer shuffles the deck and deals everyone five cards face down. Each player hides his/her cards from the other players. The rest of the cards go in a stack, face down in the middle of the circle. 2. Everyone looks at their hand and if they have any pairs, they take them out of their hand and sets them aside to make a pile, face up. This can happen at any point in the game. 3. Play starts clockwise with the person to the dealers left. He looks at his hand and chooses a card that he wants to make a pair with. He queries another player for the chosen card. 4. If the other player does have a matching card, she must hand it over to the asker, who makes the pair, sets it aside in a pile, and gets to ask again. 5. If the other player does not have a card of the same rank, she says, Go fish. The asker must draw one card from the pool, and now the person to his left gets a turn. 6. The game ends when a player no longer has any cards in his hand. Everyone counts the number of pairs they have, and the person with the most pairs wins.

Boundary Rules
1. You cant ask the same person for a card two times in a row in one turn.

Fix
Once you make a query, you essentially tell all the players that you have a certain card, and if you queried someone doesnt have a match so that you can make a pair, youre vulnerable for a player who gets a turn after you to query you for that same rank. In the first round, the last player gets the advantage of hearing what everyone has. In later rounds, people who have good memory have an advantage as well. One fix to make the querying more fair is to shuffle their failed queried card back into the pool and draw two cards from the shuffled deck. But that also removes the satisfaction of taking an unsuspecting players card. Go Fish is very juvenile, and someone running out of cards signals the end of the game, whether they got a pair or lost their last card.

My cousins and I played to make it a little more risky, and even more dependent on paying attention. Now the game between us is only loosely Go Fish. The major modification is that, instead of taking turns in a round, we played so that everyone queries cards at the same time. Everyone places a card face down in front of their target, and then turns them up. If the target has a card matching the query in their current hand, they have to give it up to the asker, placing their matching card on top of the query. At the end of the round, everyone who has made a successful query takes their pair and puts it in a pile near them. Everyone who has made an unsuccessful query takes their card back into their hand and has to Go Fish in the pool. Players make any pairs they drew, and then the next round begins. In this way of playing, multiple people may target the same person. That target must answer every query if possible. However, even if he loses every card in his current hand, the game doesnt necessarily end, because he still has a card that he himself is querying. The game CAN end if he loses all of the cards in his current hand AND he makes a successful query. This helps keep the game going a little longer. Another thing that can happen when multiple people target the same person is that they may make the same query, by asking for the same rank of card. In this case, even if the target has a matching card, she gets the pair rather than either of the askers. Play until someone loses all of the cards in their hand.

Works Cited Wintle, Simon, and Adam Wintle. "Jaques' Happy Families." World of Playing Cards. N.p., 18 Apr. 2010. Web. 16 Dec. 2013. <http://www.wopc.co.uk/games/jaques-happy-families.html>.