The Goofspiel Card Game

See [Wikipedia's "Goofspiel" entry for the rules and history.

This game is quite fun for 4 players, using two decks of cards. I think it would be fun to let the dealer pick the special rules, as in poker. It can be played with 2, 3, or 5 or more too. Three is standard. It is very good for groups of either diverse or uniform skill, because it is so hard to play well and mixed strategies are so common that a beginner has a good chance to win.

Tiebreaking rules:
1. We used that neither player gets the prize in case of tie.
2. We also used that neither high-bidding player gets the prize in case of tie, but the next highest bidder does win it. That is a good rule because it means if you are bidding low thinking you will lose, you might not want to play your lowest card, because a low bidder might win in case the two top players bid kings. So it makes you have more fun even when you’re bidding low.
3. A more standard rule is that if there is a tie, the prize goes to neither, and is combined with the next prize in the next auction.
4. SOme people split the prize in case of a tie. That is impractical, especially for more than two players, since you can no longer simply use the prize cards to keep track of scores.

Prize Order Rules:
1. The standard rule is that the prizes are shuffled and random.
2. An alternative is to bid first on the ace, then the two, then the three, and so forth, leaving the big prizes for last to increase the tension as to who will win.

Prize Visibility Rules:
1. The standard rule is to show the prizes one at a time before each is bid on.
2. An alternative would be to require players to bid on some cards without seeing them. This could be done with the first prize and the last, for example.
3. An alternative would be to shuffle the prize deck, but place the prizes face up and visible, so everybody knows the order in which they will be bid on.

Bidding Rules:
1. The standard rule is to bid simultaneously, putting your bid card face down. This is probably best.
2. An alternative is to bid sequentially, so the last player is at a big advantage. I’m not sure how this would work out.