Re: Games with one loser

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (M Man) wrote:

> I'm looking for as many games as possible that have the feature of
> producing, by their nature, a single loser rather than a single
> winner.
> 
> A trivial example would be Old Maid: the player stuck with the Old
> Maid card is the loser and the others are equally winners.
> 
> Does anyone know of other games (presumably more sophisticated ones)
> that have this quality?

The Penguin Encyclopedia of Card Games contains a whole section entitled Last In 
Loses. Most 
games categorised as Drinking Games are of this type. There are many Scandinavian 
games where 
the aim is to avoid winning the last trick. So many others fit the bill that it hardly 
seems 
worth while trying to winkle them all out. (Almost any non-partnership game can be 
converted 
into this type by simply decreeing that the player with the lowest score loses instead 
of the 
one with the highest score wins, though I suppose this contradicts the bit about 'by 
their 
nature'.)

David Parlett