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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Thursday, 26 June 1924
[The following is in the handwriting of Leah Hirsig:]
Thursday June 26.
11.15 P.M. Principles of a good card game.
1. Skill should play the principal part.
2. Risky play should bring great rewards or bad disasters.
3. There should be a system by which (as in Unlimited Lou) by embarking on a certain course of action one should be drawn Will he Nill he into a much bigger battle than anticipated.
4. There should be a balance between advantages of the 2 types of tricks and honours so that there should be room for nice judgment as to which is best to go for.
5. There should be much room for deduction.
6. ditto ditto ditto . . . psychology. (5 and 6 suggest combining the advantages of whist and poker.)
7. The most essential point of all is that the game should require special cards for copyright purposes.
8. As in Skat and my form of Piquet every card should have its own special value, if not for one purpose, then for another.
9. The actual number of cards used should be less than 52—so as to permit greater concentration and at the same time permit the utmost complexity by virtue of the different cards having more than 1 kind of value, as in chess.
10. Partnership should be optional as in Solo Whist.
11. The element of luck should not be evenly distributed as it is in most games, but, there should be a rare type of accident beyond the control of any player which will bring to ruin the best hands and greatest skill (This can be arranged by having a special card, The Devil, whose appearance is forced by the rules, as in the following suit, when it appears, it may or may not smash up the whole position.
12. The object of play should be cumulative as in chess i.e. the game should not be won little by little, as in whist; until the last card is played the issue should be uncertain.
13. There should not be so much need for memory as in Bridge. This requires a low type of thinking and one which distracts from concentration. Besides making the player liable to a type of mistake which is annoying and not instructive. (Observe that in chess there is no call whatever upon memory of the moves played. It requires a higher kind of memory, that of general principles and their illustration by published games and analyses.
14. There should be no temptation to hurry and confusion. A player waiting his turn should be fully occupied in studying the position. E.g. 22 Atus and 16 K Q P E. 2 cards unknown till end; they modify result in toto.
The Unknown Fates. Aleph wipes out winnings. Ayin gives winnings to losers. Nun postpones issue till next deal. Kaph multiplies winnings by 4. Pe halves winnings. (Last card gives final result. E.g. suppose Ayin turned and the Nun. The losers win 4 times total stake.)
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