Randy Hoyt » games

New Monopoly Version

Randy Hoyt — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:32:59 +0000

One of my other hobbies, besides being a myth enthusiast and a web developer, is playing cards and board games. Such games are not only entertaining; I also believe they can help us live better lives better improving our decision-making ability.

A few years ago, Hasbro released a new version of Monopoly called “Monopoly Here & Now”. It is a wonderful version that has adjusted prices for inflation and widened the scope to include top properties across the United States (the original game included only properties in Atlantic City). I have enjoyed that version, but I was happy to discover recently that Hasbro recently announced another new version called “Monopoly Here & Now: World Edition”. I recommend this news article, which includes details about all the new properties in the game: Montreal Passes Go To Claim The Top Spot On Global Monopoly Game Board.

I admit that my love of board games has taken a backseat to my love of myth and web development in my life over the past year or so, as well is in the current design of this web site. I have written about a few pieces of board game news here before, which are interesting reads if you haven’t encountered these particular stories before:

Scrabble High Score: 830 — This is a surprisingly interesting article about how an amateur player got the highest Scrabble score to date. Read Article »
Players Reject Card Design: A new card face was designed for the 2007 WSOP, but the players rejected it and the cards had to be replaced. Read More »

Players Reject New Card Design

Randy Hoyt — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 04:19:46 +0000

The U.S. Playing Card Company (as part of their Bicycle brand) designed a new card face especially for poker. The numbers in the corners are smaller and angled to make it easier to keep hole cards concealed, and the numbers on the face are larger to make community cards easier to read. They touted this as the first innovation in card face design since the 1960s.

Harrah’s Entertainment selected these newly-designed Bicycle cards as the official cards of the 2007 World Series of Poker (WSOP), taking place this summer. The press release is available at the WSOP web site. It contains the following comments:

“Our players deserve the best and this is just one more example of how we are working hard to provide them with nothing less” (Jeffrey Pollack, WSOP Commissioner).

“The WSOP participants will … recognize and appreciate the … innovative new Poker Peek face style” (Rob Clendening, Bicycle Brand Manager).

The new cards were revealed today at the first tournament of the series. Unfortunately, the players did not appreciate the new cards at all. The placement of the large numbers on the face made it difficult to distinguish between 6’s and 9’s. The small suits on the face caused some players to think mistakenly they had flushes. The complaints were so widespread that the new cards were replaced after a few hours.

The negative reaction has been reported throughout the internet on various forums and poker news sites:

Interview with poker player Daniel Negreanu
CardPlayer news update
News article at pokerworks.com
FullTiltPoker forum thread (includes pictures)

Scrabble High Score, 830

Randy Hoyt — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 01:56:53 +0000

This is a surprisingly interesting article about how an amateur player got the highest Scrabble score to date. Read More »