The Mind-Bending Math Behind Spot It (2018) | Hacker News Reader

The Mind-Bending Math Behind Spot It (2018)

smithsonianmag.com

63 pointsnotmysql_23 comments

Interesting card game - never heard about it before. But it reminds me of the card game Set [1], which has a similar objective of finding cards that "belong together" in some sense. It also has interesting (and similar) mathematical properties, although there is no analytical solutions (as far as I know) once you start playing by removing sets. I was really fascinated by this twelve years ago, an simulate game play to find the probabilities [2]. Great fun!

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(card_game)

2. https://henrikwarne.com/2011/09/30/set-probabilities-revisit...

PBS Infinite series video on the topic

https://youtu.be/zurpOBPt4LI

I miss infinite series :-/

PBS should get someone else to restart the channel. It has high quality videos.

As far as I know, it was PBS that quit, not the hosts.

I came here to recommend Set -- it's a fantastic game to play with kids older than about 7. It requires serious thought rather than just spotting things (not that there's anything wrong with Spot It!) And generally kids have an advantage over older players.

My then 7-year-old used to crush me and my wife at Set. I suspect part of the reason is because I thought about it too hard. :P The all-different sets are the mind-benders for me, I don’t see them easily and have to spend time enumerating combinations. He would generally beat us at Spot-It! too.

I tend to favor the all-different-in-most-ways cards as well. When there's a streak of 1, 2, and 3 all-red, all-filled, all-ovals (and other similar "obvious" sets), my family crushes me.

You should link it given the word Set is very generic.

Set is linked in the main post I'm (we're both) responding to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(card_game)

https://www.google.com/search?q=set+game

Matt Parker's video is a fun exploration of this too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTDKqW_GLkw

From a YouTube comment (eeeuw!), the reason for the 55 cards instead of 57 is confirmed:

> The reason why this game doesn't include 57 cards is indeed that the printing company that is used by asmodee (the game company that acquired the rights to Dobble) can only print 55 cards on a print sheet. That's what asmodee told to a german math YouTuber (DorFuchs) which they sponsered to promote the game.

I've played a related game called "Ghost Blitz" in which you're trying to find either the correctly coloured object, or if that isn't on the card, you grab the object that isn't represented on the card by its object or colour.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/83195/ghost-blitz

Given there's 2 different people in this thread recommending Ghost Blitz: okay, okay, message received. I ordered it.

It's a peculiar game as you have to try to get your brain to "look" for the colours/objects that aren't there. You can consciously eliminate the objects one by one, but inevitably someone else will be quicker than you. When you get the knack for how to quickly find the missing item, you suddenly end up winning lots of round in a row.

Spot It! is a great game, especially to play with young kids. I find that it's one of the few games that are not completely up to luck, yet you don't have that much of an advantage being a grown-up. That makes it a lot of fun for players of all ages.

I recently lost a few games of Memory (or Concentration/Matching Pairs [0]) to a child.

I wasn’t really trying, but I think she wasn’t either. Someone told me that being a grownup is actually a disadvantage on this game. Children have much better visual/positioning memory than adults. I don’t know if that is true, but it felt very plausible after those games.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_(card_game)

My son was crazy about that game when he was four, and he was devastatingly good at it. Him and his daycare buds would huddle up around The Matching Game like it was an underground '00s poker tournament.

The title is a bit misleading, it's not mind bending maths or other obscure/exotic properties. Simple logic, geometry/topology and combinations :-)

Very easy and fun game, good for enhancing observability and reaction time, especially with kids. Here in Europe it's known as Dobble.

It involves geometry with a point at infinity, which is not your standard Euclidean geometry.

Parent didn't say "Euclidean"

It's finite.

The same "point at infinity" also exists on circles (like a clock) and spheres (like the Earth) and toruses (like a bagel).

Unfortunately, the link to a site with code for this doesn't work, but archive.org has our back:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160503021303/https://radiganen...

The GitHub link works still:

https://github.com/WRadigan/pySpot-It/blob/master/pySpot-It....

This is one of the few games that my kids (6 and 4) can sometimes beat me while playing straight (not letting them win), making it a really interesting experience(since almost no luck is involved).

Also there's an easier version with fewer cards (30) and drawings of animals that should be suitable for even younger children.

Have you tried Ghost Blitz [1]?

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/83195/ghost-blitz

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