Time to bring back Primero, I think

[jducoeur]

As part of today's Low Company meeting, I'll probably be teaching Primero (among other things). This is one of the most important card games of the Renaissance, and rather fun -- it's essentially the 16th century equivalent of Poker. I originally reconstructed it about six years ago, taught it for a while, got unhappy with my reconstruction and stopped. In the meantime, another reconstruction showed up, which has its own problems but which I believe (if I steal some of its ideas) fixes some of mine.

I've been dithering about that for years, unsure about how to balance the reconstructions, but I think it's simply time to trust my instincts, go with the notes I wrote down about five years ago, and try the newly hybridized reconstruction. So we'll play with at least English Primero today (possibly the Italian game if people want to try something a little more complex), and see how the new version does.

Assuming it seems to work, expect that to show up more often at events. If nothing else, I need to teach enough people the game to provide context, since I volunteered to teach elementary statistics based on Primero at etherial's event in the fall...

Comments

[mikekn]

Are you going to be at Pennsic? Primero would be a great class for the games tent :)

[jducoeur]

Hmm. Not a bad idea, and I'm likely (although not yet certain) to be at Pennsic. Let me do one or two more playtests on this reconstruction, and once I'm comfortable with it (and figure out how to describe the pass mechanism so that it's clearer), I can set up a class...