peer2peergames

Goofspiel

Also called GOPS, the Game of Pure Strategy, and the name is earned. Once the prize order is fixed there is no luck left in it at all, only what you can work out about the other hand.

Play Goofspiel Leaderboard

The rules

  1. Both players hold the same thirteen cards, ace through king, worth 1 to 13.
  2. A third set of thirteen is shuffled face down and becomes the prizes.
  3. One prize is turned face up. Both players then bid one card from their hand, in secret.
  4. The bids are revealed together. The higher bid wins the prize.
  5. Both bid cards are spent either way, whether they won the prize or not. You never get a card back.
  6. Equal bids win nothing. The prize rolls over and joins the next one, so the following round is worth both cards at once.
  7. Play continues until all thirteen prizes are gone and both hands are empty.

Scoring

  1. A prize is worth its own rank: the seven of the prize suit is worth seven points.
  2. When prizes have rolled over, whoever wins the next round takes all of them together.
  3. The player with the most points at the end wins. Equal points is a draw.
  4. The whole deck is 91 points, so 46 wins a two-player game outright.

What you can see

  1. Everything except a bid that has not been revealed yet is public.
  2. That includes exactly which cards your opponent has already spent, and therefore exactly what is left in their hand.
  3. Keeping track of what they have left is the whole game. There is nothing else to go on.

How a game ends

  1. The game ends when the thirteenth prize has been taken and both hands are empty.
  2. The higher score wins. Equal scores is a draw.
  3. A resignation ends the game and the other player wins.
  4. A missed move deadline is a loss, exactly like resigning.

Ties rolling over is one of three published ways to handle them. Discarding the prize was rejected because it makes a tie dull, and splitting it was rejected because it produces fractional scores. Rolling over keeps the arithmetic whole and is the variant with the most in it: a player with a bidding advantage can deliberately aim to tie, then take the accumulated pile with an uncontested high card.

Goofspiel terms

A prize
The card turned face up each round, worth its rank in points.
A bid
The card you play from your hand to compete for the prize. It is spent whether you win or not.
Rolling over
What happens to a prize after tied bids: it joins the next prize, and both go to whoever wins that round.

Playing it here

  • Against a person or the bot. The bot needs no account and starts at once. To play a person, be rated and keep your games, you need an account: an email address and a password.
  • At your own pace. Every move has a deadline you both see, from one minute to a week. A game can take an evening or it can take a fortnight.
  • Nothing to buy and nothing to win. No stakes, no prizes, no boosts, no undo. The only thing on offer is a place on a leaderboard, and only if you want one.
  • Every game can be checked. Anything decided by chance comes from the game's seed, and the seed is published the moment the game ends, so any finished game can be replayed and verified by anyone. See fair play.