Log In
Log In
Led by Edmond Hoyle Simulacrum
A fourteen-module tour of the great card games, each taught by a specialist — Hoyle on Whist, Suckling on Cribbage, Brunson on Texas Hold'em, the Thorpian Simulacrum on card-counting, and ten more. One sitting per module, one game per sitting.
Courses are available to holders of a paid pass or membership. See passes & membership →
Led by Edmond Hoyle Simulacrum
The question
The trick-taking foundation that every other game in this course descends from. Hoyle walks you through the deal, the trump suit, the turn-up, the discipline of following suit, and what makes a trick yours. Four players, thirteen tricks per hand, partners across the table — and a body of conventions Hoyle himself codified that turned a tavern game into the parlour game of the eighteenth century. The closing hand is a full deal played out trick by trick, with Hoyle commenting on what each player should be thinking.
Outcome
You can sit down at a Whist table, follow suit reliably, recognise when your partner is signalling, and play a thirteen-trick hand without needing the rules explained mid-deal. (Trick-taking foundation)
Sub-units
Led by Charles Cotton Simulacrum
The question
A tour of the games gentlemen actually played in 1674, taken from Charles Cotton's *Compleat Gamester* — the book Hoyle was reacting to seventy years later. Cotton teaches Piquet (the two-handed game of choice for two centuries), All-Fours (the ancestor of every American partnership game), Loo (gambling for the unlucky), and Beggar-my-Neighbour (the game children still play in pubs). The closing hand is Piquet, played to fifteen-thirty-fifty for a small wager.
Outcome
You can play Piquet competently and recognise the bones of All-Fours, Loo, and Beggar-my-Neighbour when they surface in modern games. (Pre-Hoyle games)
Sub-units
Led by Sir John Suckling Simulacrum
The question
Sir John Suckling invented Cribbage around 1630 and lost a small fortune at it. He teaches you his game from scratch: the deal, the discard to the crib, the play to thirty-one, and the show — counting fifteens, pairs, runs, flushes, and the elusive twenty-nine hand. The board, the pegs, the rhythm of pegging. The closing hand is a full game to 121, played out with Suckling explaining each discard.
Outcome
You can deal, peg, count fifteens-pairs-runs-flushes accurately, and play a complete game of Cribbage to 121 without missing points. (The two-handed peg game)
Sub-units
Led by Hearts and Spades Simulacrum
The question
Two American casual games sharing a deck and a kitchen-table tradition. Hearts is avoidance — every heart is a point, the queen of spades is thirteen, and you don't want any of them, unless you can take all of them and shoot the moon. Spades is the precise-count partnership game where you bid the number of tricks you'll take and pay for missing by one as much as for missing by ten. The closing hand is a Spades round played to 500, partners across the table.
Outcome
You can play Hearts without dropping the queen of spades on your partner by mistake, and play Spades with a partner without overbidding or underbidding the hand. (American casual games)
Sub-units
Led by The Skat Master Simulacrum
The question
Germany's national card game, played seriously by three players over a thirty-two-card deck. The Skat Master walks you through the bidding (Grand, Suit, Null), the skat (the two-card pile that gives the game its name), the play, and the scoring matrix that rewards declarer or punishes the defenders. The closing hand is a full Bockrunde — three deals where each player gets to be declarer.
Outcome
You can bid a Skat hand competently, understand when to pick up the skat and when to play hand, and defend co-operatively against a declarer. (German national card game)
Sub-units
Led by The Jass Player Simulacrum
The question
The Swiss Alpine trick-taking game played in every farmhouse, inn, and ski lodge from Geneva to St Moritz. The Jass Player teaches you the thirty-six-card deck (German or French suits depending on the canton), Schieber (the most-played partnership variant), and the trump-rotation that makes every hand different. He also covers Schnapsen (the two-handed Austrian sibling) and Königrufen (the Tarock relative). The closing hand is a Schieber match played to 2500.
Outcome
You can play Schieber Jass with a partner, follow the trump rotation, and recognise Schnapsen and Königrufen when you encounter them in Austria or Slovenia. (Alpine trick-taking)
Sub-units
Led by Wild Bill Hickok Simulacrum
The question
Poker as it was played in the saloons of the American West before the modern variants existed — Five-Card Stud and Five-Card Draw, no community cards, hand rankings as we still know them, betting rounds with their own etiquette. Wild Bill Hickok teaches you the games he actually played, including the hand he was holding when shot in Deadwood (aces and eights — the Dead Man's Hand). The closing scenario is a Stud hand at the table where the cards are visible and the reads are everything.
Outcome
You know the canonical hand rankings cold, can play Five-Card Stud and Five-Card Draw, and understand the Dead Man's Hand and why the Old West games were structured the way they were. (Frontier poker)
Sub-units
Led by Doyle Brunson Simulacrum
The question
The modern poker game that dominated the world after the 1970s. Doyle Brunson — author of *Super System*, two-time WSOP Main Event champion — teaches you the structure (hole cards, flop, turn, river), position and its enormous importance, pot odds versus implied odds, and the pre-flop hand selection that separates beginners from competent players. The closing hand is a full session at a $1/$2 cash game with Brunson commenting on each decision.
Outcome
You can sit at a Texas Hold'em table, fold most hands pre-flop, recognise position, calculate basic pot odds, and survive a session without donating chips. (Modern competitive poker)
Sub-units
Led by Ely Culbertson Simulacrum
The question
The introduction to Bridge — the partnership game that occupied a serious fraction of all twentieth-century evenings. Ely Culbertson, who established Contract Bridge as the game it became in the 1930s, teaches you the deal, the auction, the play of the dummy, and the four-way conversation that bidding actually is. The closing hand is a full deal where you sit South and Culbertson narrates the bidding and play.
Outcome
You understand the structure of a Bridge hand, the role of the dummy, and the basic logic of opening and responding bids. (Bridge introduction)
Sub-units
Led by Charles Goren Simulacrum
The question
The Goren point-count system that made Bridge teachable, replicable, and democratic — the language American and English Bridge still speak first. Charles Goren walks you through the standard count (4-3-2-1 for honours, distribution adjustments, the rules for opening, responding, and rebidding), the major-suit and notrump openings, and the standard responses. The closing hand is a full deal where you bid and play using Goren count and Goren responses.
Outcome
You can evaluate a Bridge hand by Goren count, open and respond using the standard rules, and bid an uncontested auction to a sensible contract. (Standard American/British bidding)
Sub-units
Led by Oswald Jacoby Simulacrum
The question
The named conventions that turn the bidding box from a vocabulary into a language. Oswald Jacoby teaches you Jacoby Transfers (responder requesting opener to bid the responder's major), Jacoby 2NT (game-forcing major-raise), Stayman (asking for a four-card major after a notrump opening), and Blackwood (asking for aces before a slam). The closing hand is a slam auction that uses three of the four conventions.
Outcome
You can recognise and respond to Stayman, Jacoby Transfers, Jacoby 2NT, and Blackwood, and use them in your own bidding. (Bridge conventions)
Sub-units
Led by Omar Sharif Simulacrum
The question
Bridge as performance — what it looks like at the international tournament level, where Omar Sharif and his Bridge Circus toured the world in the 1960s and 70s playing exhibition matches against the best teams alive. Sharif teaches you the discipline of the high-level player: the squeeze, the endplay, the safety play, the false card. The closing hand is a championship deal with a textbook squeeze that Sharif walks you through line by line.
Outcome
You can recognise a squeeze setup, identify when a safety play is required, and follow the logic of high-level Bridge well enough to read a tournament report. (Tournament Bridge)
Sub-units
Led by Thorpian Card-Counting Simulacrum
The question
Blackjack as a beatable game, taught by the cognitive abstraction of the working method that produced *Beat the Dealer* (1962) and showed the world that the casino's edge could be turned. The Thorpian Simulacrum walks you through basic strategy first (the table that gets you to roughly even money), then the Hi-Lo count (running count, true count, and bet sizing), and finally the discipline of playing without getting noticed by the pit boss. The closing scenario is a shoe played from the start with you keeping the count.
Outcome
You can play basic strategy from memory, keep a Hi-Lo count through a six-deck shoe, and convert the running count to a true count for bet sizing. (Beatable blackjack)
Sub-units
Led by Nick the Greek Simulacrum
The question
Nick the Greek — Nicholas Andreas Dandolos, who lost and won millions across his lifetime and once played a five-month heads-up game with Johnny Moss — teaches you what he knew about gambling that no rule-book contains. The reading of opponents. The discipline of the bankroll. The recognition of when you are running well and when you are not. The decision to walk away. The closing scenario is a high-stakes hand where the cards matter less than the reads.
Outcome
You can describe the Greek's principles for reading an opponent, managing a bankroll, and recognising tilt, and apply them at any table you sit at. (The gambler's philosophy)
Sub-units