The Tao of Gaming

Full disclosure: I got a free copy from the designers.

I saw Greg Schloesser's note about Parlay and then had an email asking me if I wanted a copy. Sure!

Like Greg, I've had a good first impression.

You are basically playing a seven-card poker game with a special deck. Each card, in addition to being a normal card, is a scrabble-tile. It has a letter, and a value (All multiples of five). Better cards are usually five point tiles. We played draw, but you can play any reasonable poker game. Here's draw.

Each player gets five cards, with two cards face up in the middle ("Community cards"). One round of exchanging, and then each player makes a word and decides if they are going to stay or fold.

Everyone reveals their word. (Here you also have bluffing but frankly, we just skipped that part. Serious word gamers may want to bluff fake words, but we didn't). Each player also reveals if they stayed or folded. The player who stayed who has the best poker hand (which may or may not use the same cards as their word), gets to double their word score. Now all of the players who stayed compared scores ... and everyone who didn't have the high score gets zero points for the hand. The player(s) with the high scores (after the high hand doubles) get to keep their score and score any bonuses for word length (five or more letters).

And that's it. You play to 500 points, which I figure will take 8-10 hands in a four player game (and maybe a bit more in a six player game).

Our game took 10 interesting hands. In one hand I had EXOTIC. A 70 point word. But I had a terrible poker hand. Atrocious. Now, if I fold I get to keep my seventy points. But if I stay and the winning poker hand's word is only 35 points (or less), I get a 45 point length bonus. And if I'm the only player who stays, I get to double my seventy points. (With only four players, we had a hand or two where everyone folded). A tempting risk.

In another hand I broke up a low scoring six letter word to try and hit a full house (drawing two cards) that also left me a reasonable five-letter stem to try and add on.

One hand saw a pair of kings on the board, and I had a small three of a kind, giving a weak full house. But a reasonably strong hand of 50 points. I folded to bank the points, assuming that there'd be kings full. There was, but with only a twenty point word, so I would have won if I'd stayed.

So I like the game. The main problem, in my opinion, is that the rules (and scoresheet) don't present the game in a logical order. They aren't that hard (I've covered them all, except bluffing/mis-spelled words), but the rules aren't as clear as they can be. [I misread them, so it's my fault. See below].

Hardcore poker- (as compared to word-) gamers will probably be upset that there's no betting during the hand (only the stay/fold decision) but I can imagine tacking that on. [Instead of betting, Parlay allows you to exchange a card or two with each round of betting. I think that having 2 or more exchanges would slow the game down.] I consider this a word-game with a poker gloss. If you view it the other way that would probably be an issue, but I don't imagine many hardcore poker players (as compared to gamers) will be playing this. Quality components, but when you boil it down the box has the rules, a special deck of cards, a few chips and a score pad.

I also like that the game has good rules for jokers/blanks (always a contentious issue for poker and word games). Jokers are wild for cards or letters, worth zero points (like Scrabble). But a joker can only be used in the poker hand or word, not both. Nice. I'll have to try with jokers sometime. I could envision a situation where discarding one is the correct play. And there are a number of poker games you can play (all with the same rules). Given that you don't have real betting, draw (with two community cards) or seven card stud seems best, but there several games included and more on the publisher's website.

Anyway, a cute word game.

Update: OK, I've gone and re-read the rules, based on Larry's comment. I thought the length bonus was only added in after figuring out who wins the "Stay", but it's before. My mistake.

Update: Thinking about that rule I got wrong, I don't have a problem with it either way, but it definitely helps the word players. If I can play a seven card word, then I'll get Word + 45 (7 card bonus). That means that even if I lose high hand, I'll probably be tough to be (assuming high hand had a 40 point word, he'll have 80. My word will be at least 35, barring jokers). That may mean that wordgamers may be able to ignore poker hands, build bingoes and win. We'll have to see.