Puzzler's Clubs

TBD

Designer(s): elara Match Type: MM (for 3 players)
Featured in: The Genius Puzzler

Main Match 12: Puzzler's Clubs

In Puzzler's Clubs, players and their invited guests solve puzzles and make poker hands, while also guessing the hands of others.


RULES

In this game, players and guests have pretty much the same role. These rules use the term "participant" to refer to both players and guests as a collective unit.

Guests and Players may both use Garnets in this game; Players may transfer as many of their Garnets as they'd like to their Guest at any point during the MM. (You can also transfer Garnets to other Guests, or a Guest can transfer back to a Player. At the end of the Main Match, all Garnets held by Guests will be given back to their respective Player.)


This game uses a standard deck of 52 playing cards, and uses 5-card poker hands (as seen in Texas Hold'Em, among other games), as well as their rankings. Look those up if you're unfamiliar with them.


The game takes place over seven rounds. Each round has two phases: Phase A (which consists of puzzling and drafting), and Phase B (which consists of building and guessing). Each round's Phase B overlaps the next round's Phase A, so there are eight phases played in total.


PUZZLING

Each round, a different puzzle type is revealed. These puzzles test mental agility or observational skills (think Gyul Hap from the show as one example), but the exact specification of the puzzles will vary from round to round. Puzzles are hard-capped at 30 minutes per round; I generally do not expect all 30 minutes to be required.

All participants should find some time during each Phase A to do these puzzles. Failure to do this will mean you get three Club Tokens with the maximum values possible.

Due to the nature of this mechanic, I will be more lenient than normal with deadline extensions; please try to do the puzzles within the time, but if you are unable to as a one-time thing, then you can request an extension and I'll grant it.

Each round's puzzles will reward participants with three Club Tokens, each with a positive integer on it. For instance, one way this can be assigned is by having three puzzles, and each token corresponds to the amount of time you took to solve one of the puzzles. Club Tokens carry over between rounds.

Participants may spend 1 Garnet to learn all three Club Token values of a different participant for a single round. Otherwise, you are not told how other participants did on puzzles.


DRAFTING

Each round, participants draft some cards. However, everybody is trying to draft cards, and a card only appears once in each deck. At the beginning of each Phase A, one community card is revealed, and each participant is randomly given one hole card, which is public. Both the community card and the hole cards are guaranteed to not be clubs, so there are seven non-club cards revealed.

Afterwards, everybody can draft six cards. Drafting works as follows: You assign a priority number (from 1 to 6, with 1 being the highest priority) to each of the six cards you want; you must pick six different cards. For any club that you select, you must also use a Club Token.

Then, participants receive cards as follows:

  • For all non-clubs, if there is a single lowest priority number from any participant, that participant receives the card. Otherwise, the card is discarded, and nobody receives it.
  • For all clubs, the same method is used as above, but instead of the lowest priority number, the priority value used is equal to the Club Token number multiplied by the priority number assigned. (For instance, if I used a 100 token as priority 2, I have a priority value of 200 for the club, and would win it over anybody with a larger priority number.)

Participants may spend 2 Garnets to decrease a priority number by 1. For instance, this could mean that your new priority numbers are 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, and 6. This can be used to turn a 1 into a 0, but cannot be used twice on the same number.

After Drafting, it is revealed for each card how many participants attempted to draft it and whether it was given out to someone or discarded, but who received the card is not revealed.


BUILDING

Now, participants have up to eight cards, including the one community card and hole card. Each participant should form a five-card poker hand out of these cards. You can also use under five cards; for instance, if you only successfully drafted one card, you could still make a pair or a three of a kind (but couldn't make a flush even if the community card, hole card, and your drafted card were the same suit; flushes require five cards).

All participants' hands are then ranked, and you score points based on the relative ranking of hands that you made. The point scoring is as follows, from strongest to weakest: 15, 10, 6, 3, 1, 0. (So, the best hand earns 15 points, and so on.) Furthermore, a participant earns 1 bonus point for every club in their hand.

If multiple hands are tied, the hand with the highest numbered club wins the tiebreaker. If multiple hands do not have clubs, they all receive the lower rank (earning less points).

The relative rank of hands is revealed at the end of each Phase B.


GUESSING

While other participants are building their hands, you will be guessing them. For each participant, guess the hand they submit. You may guess up to five cards. You steal 1 point from them for every card you guess correctly. You steal 2 points from them if the hand type that the five cards you guess for them matches their actual hand type (e.g. full house). However, you give 1 point to the other participant for every card you guess incorrectly.

For instance, if a participant's hand was the 5-9 straight flush of clubs, and you guessed the 3-7 straight flush of clubs for them, you steal 3 points from them in total (3+2-2).

If you guess every other participant's hand type correctly in a single turn, you earn a 10 point bonus.

At the end of the phase, you are told how many points you earned from Guessing in total, but not who you stole from, and not how much others stole from you.


OVERALL

At the end of the Main Match, each player and their associated guest will have their scores summed as the final result for the player. The player with the highest score is the winner of the Main Match and advances to the Finals. The remaining two players play in the Death Match. Out of the remaining two players, the Death Match Opponent (for any game which requires symmetry to be broken) is the player with the higher score.

If there is a tie, we consider the most recent time (at the end of a round) where there wasn't a tie, and use those scores as a tiebreaker.

Players earn 1 Garnet for every 15 points they have at the end of the game. (Garnets are not used in finals, except that one Item will go to the player with the higher Garnet count.)


ADMINISTRATION

Timing

This Main Match lasts 8 phases: 1A, 2A+1B, 3A+2B... 7A+6B, 7B. Each phase lasts 24 hours (unless it is extended).


Submissions

Puzzling: During each Phase A, find some time to do the puzzles for the round. There will be a Discord bot set up to do that; instructions will be given when we get to the round.

Drafting: During each Phase A, submit an assignment of six cards to the priority numbers 1-6. For each club you assign, also use a Club Token.

Building: Submit up to five cards that you are allowed to use.

Guessing: For each other participant, guess up to five cards for them.


Information

Revealed at the start of each Phase A:

  • The rules to the puzzle for the round
  • The community card and each player's hole card

Revealed at the end of each Phase A:

  • For each card, how many times it was drafted and whether somebody received it or it was discarded

Revealed at the end of each Phase B:

  • The relative ranking of all players' hands

Told to you privately, upon finishing the puzzles:

  • Your Club Token values

Told to you privately, at the end of each Phase A:

  • Which cards you received

Told to you privately, at the end of each Phase B:

  • How many points you earned from Guessing

Told to you upon spending Garnets:

  • The Club Tokens that a participant got for any round.

Revealed publicly at the end of the game:

  • The number of points each participant has, and therefore, the winning player

Garnets

Garnets may be spent in the following way:

  • You may spend 1 Garnet to learn what Club Tokens a participant received for their puzzles for a given round.
  • You may spend 2 Garnets to lower a priority number by 1. This can be used once per priority number, per round.

Garnets may be earned in the following way:

  • You earn 1 Garnet for every 15 points you and your partner have at the end of the Main Match (rounded down).

Amendment: After starting your puzzles for a round, you may not speak with someone who has not finished their puzzles about the puzzles (including perceived difficulty).



Clarification: When solving puzzles, no automated help (spreadsheet calculations, calculators, etc) is allowed. You can still use a spreadsheet for note taking, just nothing automated.

Prior to solving puzzles, you can use any tools you want.


Clarification: Here's a more detailed description of how hand strength is calculated:

1) First, treat the hands as normal poker hands, and determine which is stronger. If a hand contains fewer than five cards, it loses any "high card" tiebreakers to one with five cards. For instance, a hand with just a pair of Aces would lose to a hand with two Aces and a King.

2) If the hands are still tied (this only happens if the numbers are all the same but possibly under different suits), then the highest club is used as a secondary tiebreaker.


You may not form an empty hand.

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