Back in high school—this is many years ago—I did a selection of standard geeky activities: Science Olympiad, Science Bowl, Academic Bowl, and so on. The best part of these activities was traveling to a competition with the team. These were usually held at a nearby college. In the downtime in between rounds, we’d play cards. These were people who I didn’t often get to play cards with, and the games were a lot of fun, so these sessions are a vivid memory for me. As far as I can remember, the games we played included: BS, Egyptian Rat-Screw, Hearts, President/Asshole, Euchre, Crazy Eights, Spoons (played with watches). I’ve heard stories of other, similar groups playing these games (and watched some of them myself) so I know this wasn’t just us. Anyway, while reminiscing, I was thinking about what makes a game suitable for this kind of play…

• Little concentration required. The participants are excited 15-year-olds, and distractions are all around. Everybody wants to play, so it should fit the lowest common denominator.

• Light. The game can’t require a serious commitment of time, because you might get called to another round, or you might just get distracted.

• Played with an ordinary deck of cards, because that’s what you happen to have around.

• Variable in number of players. This rule is flexible, because Euchre doesn’t work with any number other than 4, but otherwise, the games can accommodate as many people as want to play. ERS, President, and Spoons are particularly good in this regard, because people can come and go from those games pretty much at will.

• Games that get rowdy or require reflexes (ERS, Spoons) are probably better played in this atmosphere than any other.

• Any particular skill requirement is strictly optional. Hearts and Euchre both require some skill and thought, but BS and Crazy Eights don’t.

As a final note, yeah, I was on the Chess Club too, and we traveled a lot. We played Chess instead of cards, of course. Even though the materials were different, the spirit of the games was the same. We played a lot of blitz (Chess with 5 minutes per side) and Bughouse, a wild four-player variant. Compared to ordinary chess, these games can be played without much investment of time or concentration, and everybody gets to play as the opponents shuffle around from game to game.