Links: Leacock on Pandemic in Today's World, Tales of Tricks Taken, and Nominees for the 2020 Origins Awards

My hope is that Pandemic can provide a model for us in this time of crisis. We don't all have to be globe-trotting heroes to do our part. We each have special skills and should use them to make the city and statewide lockdowns safer and easier to bear. We need to communicate effectively, reach out to our friends and loved ones — as well as ensure that whatever we share on social media is based on facts.

We need to cooperate, look after our older neighbors and find ways to work from home wherever possible. And we need to coordinate and share ideas for keeping the kids entertained, for helping others obtain hard-to-get supplies and for supporting health care workers on the front lines. It's going to take serious collective action and sacrifice to slow the spread of the virus. It's heartening to see organizations, individuals and some government leaders step up.

One of the categories I got to add [to my spreadsheet of trick-taking games] was "may have more than 1 unresolved trick". What a category! I had only known of 1 game that would fit such a category, but am not letting myself add a column until at least 2 games necessitate it. Now this category has 6!

That's how I knew I wanted to try Stichling. The game is played over 3 rounds, and in each round the players get 3 cards each that will grant points based on the modulus of how many tricks they win. That is, you arrange the cards in a certain order, and when you win one trick, you flip over the first card. If you win a second, you flip over the second card, and the first goes face down. The same process happens with the third trick, but for the fourth, you'll flip the third card face down, and the first will be face up again.

The game can have up to 4 simultaneous tricks, and for much of the game, you cannot not follow suit. That is, if you don't have a purple card, you can't play a green card to a purple trick if there is another trick available to play it to, or you have room to start a new one. Players use a wooden disc in their color to mark tricks they're winning, but otherwise don't track who played which card. Tricks resolve when 4 cards have been played, and as there's no bookkeeping of who played which card, it may be that one player contributed more than one or even all of the cards to a single trick.