Links: Playing UNO for Cash, Cheating at Bridge, and Going from Game to Puzzle

The Dobble Puzzle Book contains more than 100 visual puzzles based on the award-winning and best-selling card game. Favorite Dobble icons appear in puzzles ranging from Spot the difference and Mazes, to Odd One Out and cartoon Sudoku, including head-to-head puzzles to be played against others.


The Pandemic Escape Room Puzzle Book features images and locations familiar to anyone who knows and loves the original board games in a series of chapters containing visual cryptic conundrums for the reader to ponder over, translating the Pandemic game into a thrilling global narrative.

[Fulvio] Fantoni and a regular playing partner of his, Claudio Nunes, were once ranked No. 1 and No. 2 by the World Bridge Federation, but, for years, opponents suspected that they were cheating...

In 2014, videos of matches at the European bridge championships were uploaded on YouTube for the first time. Maaijke Mevius, a physicist in the Netherlands, had heard the rumors about Fantoni and Nunes — or Fantunes, as they are sometimes known — and decided to study some of their games. She wasn't an expert player, but she thought that her training as a scientist might help her spot anomalies that better players had missed. Sure enough, she noticed something odd: when Fantoni and Nunes played a card in certain situations, they sometimes placed it on the table horizontally, and sometimes vertically. She shared her observation with Boye Brogeland, a Norwegian professional player, who has been instrumental in exposing prominent cheaters. An ad-hoc team of expert players quickly cracked the code: in eighty-two of eighty-five instances, they determined, Fantoni and Nunes placed a card on the table vertically when their hands contained an unseen ace, king, or queen of the same suit, or when their hands contained no other card of the same suit; otherwise, they placed it horizontally. (Fantoni and Nunes have denied all allegations of cheating, and have declined to comment.)

"The Mobil 1 team is thrilled to partner with Mattel for this unique consumer experience celebrating a half century of the iconic family card game, UNO," said Bryce Huschka, North America consumer marketing manager for ExxonMobil. "Mobil 1, the world's leading synthetic motor oil brand, strives to partner with other industry leaders to give fans one-of-a-kind experiences that can be valued and cherished for years to come."