Slideshow : Integration of the Hole

The Third deal of this channel concludes, bringing an end to the Fourth channel (tournament interval) involving these permutations of players. It was the Tenth initiation of the Ultimate Saga of Titanomaxia in the tarot garden at Flaming Holey's house of tarot~trumps and Titanomaxia arena.

The scoring is elucidated in the Scansion of the DanceCard. Here is the chronological sequence of imagery:

Slideshow : Integration of the Hole ~ a photo set on Flickr

poop out some fortune cookies (channel 4, deal 3, mascot + completed tableau)

In any typical deal of Titanomaxia, there are three loci of each incident: the Prognostication, the Initiation, and the Destiny. These give us several "fortune cookies" each time we play, and there are sometimes other mini- fortune-cookies from other interesting portions of the deal, such as the Discard, and the titanic Line Of Succession, for example. Some remarkable bids will produce special situations with "Handful" and "Slam" bonuses, thereby offering even more "fortune cookie" sequences. During this particular hand shown here, there weren't any such extra marvels, but we can find the delightfully silly predictable fortune cookie sequences among the five following areas of interest.

poop out some fortune cookies (channel 4, deal 3, mascot + completed tableau), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

PROGNOSTICATION
This was the when the bid was accepted and everybody was able to see the secret Bitch cards revealed by the Contractor. The secret extra six cards were:

Void 8, adjustment.
fire 8, opportunity.
fire Ten, endurance.

earth Ten, abundance.
fire Ace, action.
Void 10, wheeeeee!

There are rules about discards, so the players know the 8 and 10 of the Void are basically guaranteed to be seen from the contractor's hand during the subsequent tricking; the mundane elements are more mysteriously disposed at his discretion. If you examine the tarot symbology on those two tierces, you may enjoy a sort of "fortune cookie", sort of like a sequence of poetic words for just playing around, like those fridge-magnets which come in big sets, or the penny-arcade games with the hanging-claw for trying to retrieve a toy prize inside a glass cabinet of jumbled baubles.

Écart
This was when the Contractor made his six secret discards in order to return his hand to the proper size of twenty-four items. There are rules about discarding, forbidding the elimination of Kings and Keys and generally disallowing trumps in there, so the écart tends to be skewed into mundane Minor elements. The Contractor's six secret discards were:

7 Cups of Water (debauchery tossers),
Ace of Earth Disks (body qualities),
Earth 5 Disks (butthole pentacles).

2 sWords in the Air (deuce of truce),
Ten 10 Cups of Water (satisfying orgasms),
Ace of sWords in the Air (intelligent idea).

If you examine the symbology on those two tierces, you might find a "fortune cookie", but it will definitely be skewed away from the Aethereal and into the Elemental.

INITIATION
This is when the players begin tricking with the least information available. There are optionally announcements of further gambles, but in this particular hand there were no "handfuls" mentioned, so this Initiation is simple. Initiation continues until the tempo changes, which means it proceeds until the other side captures the lead away. If the other side never actually captures any trick, and the tempo never changes, then it would be a total "slam" wherein a player wins all of the tricks. But that is incredibly rare; ordinarily, as we find in this particular Initiation here, there are only a small number of cards played until the initiating side loses control of the lead. The defenders initiated this deal with:

Initiate = entrance of the Warlock, Archon Ω demanding Earth; King of disks. Medium = follow Earth, afford this; 4 disks, uphold. Dealer (Contractor) = acquiesce with help from the Bitch's only Earth; 10 disks, riches, bitches. Initiate = continue evolving out of disks, Earth 2. Medium = experience, smell the flowers, Earth 8. Dealer (Contractor) = swoop, snatch, queef queef, kiss kiss, Ψ Psion of Earth, END OF INITIATION as the tempo changes.

That gives you five dancers for the Initiation, then the tempo changed upon the placement of the sixth card. You can make of that "fortune cookie" what you will; it is played according to very typical traditional rules of tricking, and brings no great surprises in the scores, statistically speaking.

DESTINY
During the tricking all three players attempt to optimize their scores, but eventually they each run out of decisions which will be further able to influence the outcome of the points. Sometimes they run out of decisions before their final card, they might even have several remaining cards when they have no more options. These final cards are not "chosen" by the players, they are forced automatically into position by the mechanical rules of the game. When the players reach these final automatic motions, we comically say "the Dybbuk has arrived!" as the scorecard is thus completed. This always gives us a final card or sequence of cards which we refer to as "Destiny". In this particular deal of Titanomaxia, the three players ran out of decisions by the time the 18 Moon appeared during Trick V (the twenty-second trick). The subsequent twenty-third and twenty-fourth tricks (penultimate Trick W and ultimate destiny Trick X) produced these final two tierces:

Medium = finally lead the Artist 14 of the Aether,
Dealer = overtrumps, 21 TITAN, terminal Key,
Initiate = void, and devoid of trumps, unfavorably dispose of 7 sWords in the Air.

Dealer = finally lead the Emergence Angel 20 of the Aether,
Initiate = unfavorably dispose of 5 sWords in the Air,
Medium = acquiesce 15 Devil of the Aethereal netherworlds.

Those six dancers gave a very traditional (and fabulously beautiful!) fortune cookie of Destiny.

Line Of Succession
When the cards are dealt, the 21 Titan of trumps is the original unassailable dancer who can not be beaten. Due to the distributions of the deal and the eventual expenditures of trump cards during the tricking, the 21 might be spent at some time, and then the next "titanic" unbeatable card would be considered to "inherit" the thread of the line of succession. It is possible for a player to hold several cards simultaneously adjacent, for instance they might have both the 17 and the 16 after all the cards from the 21 down to 18 had been spent, so they'd have a couple of "co-titans". It's possible for all the trump cards to be spent so the remaining "unassailability" quality belongs to some Minor card in the coloured suit of the person maintaining control of the tempo while they have the lead. So during each hand, you might see the "line of succession" linger on just a few cards, or you might see it pass through a variety of cards in descending sequence, and you might even see it pass to a group of cards held simultaneously by an individual player. It's always an interesting variable, because it's so critical to the players' tricking strategies. In this particular deal here, we have an extremely simple Line Of Succession.

The Dealer was the Contractor, and he had dealt himself simultaneously both the 21 and 20 of trumps in the Void, and those two Aethereal cards were thus "co-Titans" from the very beginning of this deal. During the tricking, he never spent those highest trumps until the very end. No other dancers inherited the thread, so the 21 was Titan until it was spent during Trick W, and the 20 co-held the line of succession as he played during the Destiny Trick X.

21 Titan = Universe, archon of the multiverse axis, unbeatable king of highest triumphs, infinite and eternally heavenly.

20 Emergence Angel = equal partner of the Aeon, awakening from the dream through the hyperspace portal, blowing the trumpet at the gates of judgment, also forever in paradise.

* * * * *

So there you have it. The three loci of the game are able to give us at least five little "fortune cookies" in this particular deal. They are all arranged according to the strictly logical sequences of the structure of the dancing system in the Titanomaxia, and the amazingly rich symbology of the tarot cards is able to provide us with little poetic phrases describing their ranks, names, positions, uses, dispositions in tricks, bonus values, contract obligations, and so forth. It's amazing how much meditation can come from a simple game! It's like having a magic karaoke machine or a fantastic fairy musicbox or a cosmic player piano, and there's a genie inside who will help poop out some fortune cookies when you rub his belly. Go ahead, rub the genie's tummy! The invisible pink unicorns and rainblow centaurs love to tell your fortunes! They'll dance away, night and day, in the tarot garden. Please come back some time and enjoy more games at Flaming Holey's house of tarot and Titanomaxia arena!

dream of the future dancing (game~golem and mascot~ of the ass~hots; dancecard at end of channel 4, deal 3)

Okay, Game~Golem, you may go back in your box. Thank you for being a perfectly impartial scorekeeper! We appreciate how meticulously you kept a record of the dealings, biddings, bitchings, trickings, scorings, and tournament sequences for posterity. Well, maybe she doesn't like it when i bring up the sore subject of her posterior!

Okay, Mascot, my ass caught on fire, oops, Massss Cottt of the Asss Hotttsssss, thanksss for your lovely joyful cheerleader presence. Your symbolic representation of the "titanic line of succession" of unbeatable trump cards among the tarot dancer positions was a beautiful surface upon which to evaluate the troupe. Your November appearance was like a planet and an aurora giving us good colours, as though Jupiter and the Northern Borealis were joining our dancefloor. You are truly a perfect god of the winds of changes. Such a nice way to wrap up a tournament cycle and prepare for a new moon, a new season, a new year, a new game, a new quest for the Trilemma Supra. You make us dream of the future dancing.


dream of the future dancing (game~golem and mascot~ of the ass~hots; dancecard at end of channel 4, deal 3), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

* * * DanceCard * * *

The standard instructions for playing Titanomaxia with the Cosmic Tribe are given elsewhere but here's a quick list of my scorecard abbreviations.

Player positions (counter-clockwise): I=Initiate, M=Medium, D=Dealer.

Canonical hierarchy of the deck, from high to low in each element:

Cosmic Tribe:
Disks/Earth and Cups/Water =
[Archon] Ω Ψ Υ Π T 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 A
Swords/Air and Wands/Fire =
[Archon] Ω Ψ Υ Π A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 T

Anglo-French equivalent:
Diamonds/Pentacles and Hearts/Chalices =
K Q N J T 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 A
Spades/Pikes and Clubs/Rods =
K Q N J A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 T

Trumps (Void, Aether):
TITAN=21,
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2,
1=WIZARD

Excused (Joker, Fool): 0=DEMON

Scoring Tricky Points:

face cards
(Cosmic Tribe/ ~ Anglo-French equivalent):
Ω Archon ~ King +4 points
Ψ Psion ~ Queen +3 points
Υ Upsilon ~ kNight +2 points
Π Pion ~ Jack +1 point

terminal KEY cards
(of the "trilemma"):
TITAN ~ number 21
highest unassailable of trumps = +4 points
WIZARD ~ number 1
lowest ace of trumps = +4 points
DEMON ~ number 0
excused joker unsuitable = +4 points

all "blank" pip cards
(Ace thru Ten in all four coloured suits)
and all non-Key "blank" trumps
(2 thru 20 in the void)
= +0 no extra points on all "blank cards"

each tierce (every triplet of cards)
= +1 point (there are 26 tierces:
24 from the deal,
and 2 from the contract for the "discard" and/or "Bitch")

total tricky points in the deck is 78
(1 + 2 + 3 + 4) x 4 = 40 tête points from the face cards
3 x 4 = 12 points from the Key terminal trilemma cards
26 x 1 = 26 points from the tierces of card triplets

40 + 12 + 26 = 78 tricky points
divvied into the two tricky piles

Deal Recap:
~ ~ ~ Scansion of the Dance Card ~ ~ ~

Ultimate Saga of Titanomaxia tournaments: 10th initiation with these players.

Tournament interval: Channel 4 = fourth configuration with this permutation of player positions = Integration of the Hole

This is Deal Number 3 of this channel, and is the final bid of this tournament. These players conducted:

1st deal = Dream Dance Play Sing Twinkle

2nd deal = Fruits of the Garden

3rd deal (this dance here) = Integration of the (w)Hole

During the 1st deal, a contractor was foiled by his two opponents. During the 2nd deal, a contractor successfully achieved the "trilemma". Now we complete the 3rd deal here, the "supra", and the tournament channel is finalized. We only hard~shuffled once for the entire tournament. This particular third deal needed two soft~shuffles on the original tableau foundation in order to produce this pseudo-randomized chaotic distribution of dancers, and to randomly determine our Mascot of the titanic line of succession for this deal.

Game~Golem stenographer shall now let the record speak for itself:

*** DEAL ***

Initiate =
air : [Archon] Ω Ψ Υ Π 4 5 6 7 8 T
water : Π 9 8 5 A
fire : Ψ Υ 2 5
earth : [Archon] Ω 2
Void : 17 3 1 [Wizard]
"PASS".

Medium =
air : 3 9
water : 6 4 3 2
fire : 7 6
earth : Π 8 7 6 4 3
Void : 19 18 15 14 12 11 9 7 6 2
"PASS".

Dealer =
air : A 2
water : [Archon] Ω Ψ Υ T 7
fire : [Archon] Ω Π 3 4 9
earth : Ψ Υ 9 5 A
Void : [Titan] 21 20 16 13 5 4
0 [Demon]
"TAKE".

The Dealer's bid is accepted by the table and he becomes CONTRACTOR of this hand. The Initiate and the Medium become temporary co-Defenders as they oppose his attempt.

The Contractor's Bitch is revealed for the tableau.
PROGNOSTICATION of the Bitch:
Void 8, adjustment; fire 8, opportunity; fire Ten, endurance.
earth Ten, abundance; fire Ace, action; Void 10, wheeeeee!

Contractor secretly discards:
water 7, earth Ace, earth 5.
air 2, water Ten, air Ace.

Contractor's rearranged cards:
Dealer =
0 [Demon]
Void : [Titan] 21 20 16 13 10 8 5 4
earth : Ψ Υ T 9
fire : [Archon] Ω Π A 3 4 8 9 T
water : [Archon] Ω Ψ Υ
air : (void)

The Prognostication ends as the Contractor secrets his discards without announcing any intentional "slam" (nobody claims any ability to win all twenty-four tricks in this deal.) The three players then become ready for Initiation.

INITIATION:
Trick A:
Initiate does not announce any Handful. Opening lead = Earth Ω Archon.
Medium does not announce any handful, following suit = Earth 4.
Dealer (Contractor) does not announce any handful, following suit = Earth 10.
Defense 0 +5 = 5 points

Trick B:
I = Earth 2. M = Earth 8. D = Earth Ψ Psion (end of INITIATION).
Contractor 0 +4 = 4 points

Trick C: D = Fire Ω Archon. I = Fire 5. M = Fire 7.
Contractor 4 +5 = 9 points

Trick D: D = Fire Ace. I = Fire Ψ Psion. M = Fire 6.
Defense 5 +4 = 9 points

Trick E: I = Air 6. M = Air 3. D = excused 0, DEMON (remit Fire 7).
Contractor 9 +4 = 13 points
Defense 9 +1 = 10 points

Trick F: M = Earth 3. D = Earth 9. I = void, 1 Ace of trumps, WIZARD.
Defense 10 +5 = 15 points

Trick G: I = Water 9. M = Water 2. D = Water Ω Archon.
Contractor 13 +5 = 18 points

Trick H: D = Fire 8. I = Fire 2. M = void, 2 trumps, Sorceror.
Defense 15 +1 = 16 points

Trick I: M = Earth Π Pion. D = Earth Υ Upsilon. I = 3 trumps, Producer.
Defense 16 +4 = 20 points

Trick J: I = Air 4. M = Air 9. D = void, 4 trumps, Director.
Contractor 18 +1 = 19 points

Trick K: D = Fire Ten. I = Fire Υ Upsilon. M = 6 trumps, Lovers.
Defense 20 +3 = 23 points

Trick L: M = Earth 6. D = 5 trumps, Seer. I = 17 overtrumps, Star.
Defense 23 +1 = 24 points

Trick M: I = Air 8. M = 7 trumps, Chariot. D = 8 overtrumps, Balance.
Contractor 19 +1 = 20 points

Trick N: D = Fire 9. I = devoid of trumps, favorably dispose Air Ω Archon. M = 9 trumps, Hermit.
Defense 24 +5 = 29 points

Trick O: M = Air 7. D = 10 trumps, Wheel. I = unfavorably dispose Air Ten.
Contractor 20 +1 = 21 points

Trick P: D = Fire 3. I = favorably dispose Air Ψ Psion. M = 12 trumps, Hanged Man.
Defense 29 +4 = 33 points

Trick Q: M = Water 3. D = Water Ψ Psion. I = Water Ace.
Contractor 21 +4 = 25 points

Trick R: D = Fire 4. I = favorably dispose Air Υ Upsilon. M = 11 trumps, Strength.
Defense 33 +3 = 36 points

Trick S: M = Water 4. D = Water Υ Upsilon. I = Water 5.
Contractor 25 +3 = 28 points

Trick T: D = Aether 16, Tower. I = favorably dispose Air Π Pion. M = 19 overtrumps, Sun.
Defense 36 +2 = 38 points

Trick U: M = Water 6. D = void, 13 trumps, Death. I = Water 8.
Contractor 28 +1 = 29 points

Trick V: D = Fire Π Pion. I = favorably dispose Water Π Pion. M = 18 trumps, Moon. (DESTINY begins)
Defense 38 +3 = 41 points

Trick W: M = Aether 14, Art. D = 21 overtrumps, TITAN. I = unfavorably dispose Air 7.
Contractor 29 +5 = 34 points

Trick X: D = Aether 20, Emergence Angel. I = unfavorably dispose Air 5. M = Aether 15, Devil (final DESTINY).
Contractor 34 +1 = 35 points

Tierces Y and Z (DISCARDS): Water 7, Air Ace, Earth 5; Air 2, Water Ten, Air Ace.
Contractor 35 +2 = 37 points

final Tricky Points piled: Contractor=37, Defense=41.
(37+41=78 because there are always 78 tricky points in this style of three~player dance.)
Contractor has disposed of two KEY terminals (21 TITAN and 0 DEMON).
Defense has disposed of one KEY terminal (1 WIZARD).
Contractor needed 36 target minimum, but earned 37, so his surplus was 37-36= +1 extra.
Price of contract is 25 credits, plus the +1 extra surplus above target, +0 for Magick (Wizard was not used during the Last Trick of Destiny). Contractor's bid was "TAKE" so there are no multiplications. Nobody announced any intentional Slam, and nobody announced any Handful supermajority of trump cards dealt in the Void, so there are no further additions.

[ ( 25 + 1 + 0 ) x 1 ] + 0 + 0 = +26

Both co-defenders debit -26 from their accounts. They both pay the Contractor for his victory, so his account is credited:
2 x 26 = +52 credits

Titanomaxia is a zero-sum game and players typically settle up at the end of each round. Many gamblers exchange their credits for monetary award, but casual gamers might prefer other compensations such as raspberries, dildos, or breathtakingly dangerous kisses.

The previous deal had achieved the trilemma, and this deal thus achieves the supra, so this Trilemma Supra tournament channel is now concluded. Only soft~shuffling takes place during any tournament, so the deck is now finally free again to be hard~shuffled any time for a new channel in the Ultimate Saga.

(The Appendage/ AppenDix/ Dix player to be fourth among the three~way will earn a meta-score which is relevant only to the game~golem and to the amusement of the Oracle.)

hippo-in-a-tutu (channel 4, deal 3, discards Y_Z)

Well, now that they all saw how the Bitch helped the bidder when he "let the genie out of the bottle" and gambled on this deal, they can simply confirm his winnings as the dancecard is finished. Genie ("Yes, Master?") is to be thanked for encouragements. The fairies and busy-bee buzzy-dealers are to be thanked for the costumery they provided to the dance ("bibbidy bobbidy boo"). And let's thank the invisible friends who brought the Cosmic Tribe of dancers into existence so they'd be able to prance at Flaming Holey's house of tarot and Titanomaxia arena. Standing on the shoulders of giants, if you want to bake an apple pie from scratch you must first know the recipe for the universe, and if it's a sufficiently advanced pi you will not be able to distinguish it from magic. I should probably apologize a little bit to Newton, Sagan, and Clarke for what i just said, but isn't a dragqueen supposed to be given a tiny bit of slack when she's adjusting her tutus? No? Well if a hippo wants to sauté in a ballet tutu while misquoting authors of magic, there must be a tableau where she can dance somewhere. Let's pack the devils and angels back inside the cuckooclock-musicbox-genielamp-fairyrainbow-leprechaunpot of gold and ask the halflings and elves if they know who's going to appear in next season's plays. They'll accept our hippo-in-a-tutu; and maybe some day some how somebody will hard~shuffle the cards again.

hippo-in-a-tutu (channel 4, deal 3, discards Y_Z), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

It's the post-24-tricks roundup as the tableau completes itself. This Integration of the (w)Hole was the third deal of the fourth channel of Trilemma Supra tournaments, and was the tenth initiation in the Ultimate Saga of Titanomaxia with the permutations of these players. Each Trilemma Supra tournament interval is a "channel", and its length is slightly unpredictable. The "trilemma" is the group of three "KEY" terminal cards in the scoring system, and if a deal is completed with all three keys on somebody's Tricky Pile then we say the table has "achieved the trilemma". When this occurs, the players subsequently play one more deal, known as the "supra", and that is how the tournament is concluded. On this particular tableau they have, in fact, just achieved the "supra"; and it's a beautiful conclusion to a fascinating tournament channel.

Earlier, when the Contractor was bidding to "TAKE" the Bitch and everybody saw the Prognostication, he secretly discarded two tierces in order to keep the proper number of (twenty-four) cards in his re-arranged hand, and that signified to the tableau their readiness for Initiation. Those two tierces (triplets) of discards were "empty" of tête points, which means they contained no face cards, they were only Minor pip cards which he discreetly considered inutile for his subsequent tricking. The twenty-four tricks were played out. We referred to them as the Initiation at A, then B (until the tempo changed), then continued along thru tricks C, D, etc… until X finally marked the spot at Destiny when the twenty-fourth triplet of cards had been piled. Now the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth tierces (from the contractor's original "écart" discarded underneath his pile) will be confirmed to show how the seventy-eight cards of the deck were ultimately distributed.

Tierce Y: 7 Cups of Water (debauchery tossers), Ace of Earth Disks (body qualities), Earth 5 Disks (butthole pentacles).

Tierce Z: 2 sWords in the Air (deuce of truce), Ten 10 Cups of Water (satisfying orgasms), Ace of sWords in the Air (intelligent idea).

Score:

The Contractor scores +2 points for the two empty tierces and these are added to their previous subtotal of 35 on the tableau of tricks; their final grand total of Tricky Points is now 37 in their tricky pile.

Contractor = 37 tricky points piled
Defense = 41 tricky points piled
37+41=78 points among 78 cards in the deck

The opponents (the two temporary co-Defenders trying to foil the contract) counted 41 Tricky Points for the grand total of their tricky pile, and 37+41=78 (of course) because the values of the seventy-eight cards in the deck always add to 78 in the players' three~way-tableau style of scoring.

The goal of the game for a contractor is to achieve a target of Tricky Points which depends upon how many of the three crucial KEY terminal cards he disposed into his pile. For holding three keys, a player needs 33 points; for holding two keys a player would need 36 points; for holding only one key a player would need 43 points; and for holding none of the keys a player would need 46 points. (Do you have more than half of the keys? If yes, then you don't quite need half of the 78 points, lucky ducky. If you have less than half of the keys on your side, then you will need a bit more than half of the 78 points, poor peter. That's why everybody tries so hard to bid on those key terminal cards!) We always concern ourselves with the dispositions of the TITAN, WIZARD, DEMON, those terminals of the "trilemma" when scoring.

So in this particular hand, we find the contractor finished with the Omnipotent Titan 21 of Trumps and the Unsuitable Demon 0 of Fool-ish Jokers. The defenders finished with their number 1 Ace of Trumps Magician Wizard on their tricky pile. So the defense kept their one key while the contractor has his two of the three crucial KEYS to the scoring targets: his contract requires 36 points to succeed. He did, in fact, score 37 for his lovely Tricky Pile. So he exceeds his target by 1 tricky point! Hooray! He just barely made it! Now he will take that one extra point and include it in his credit calculations when they settle their scores.

The basic price of winning a contract is +25 credits. The extra "surplus" +1 point is added, so now this contract is worth +26 for such delightfully tight success (photo finish!) If there had been other bonus moves or bonus announcements, we would add them here. But this hand was conducted without any mention of "handful of trumps" supermajority; there was no special "Magick Trick" usage of the wizard in the "least-at-last" position; and there was no relevant "slam" ("chelem") situation where somebody would have tried to capture every single trick. These cards were good enough for a gamble, but they had no such bonus modifiers. If the contractor had decided to speak of a riskier bid (for some gamble of double, quadruple, etc) he would have been able to multiply his credits here; but his cards were only barely acceptable enough to bid single "TAKE", and thus +26 is the final credit scored from each opponent for his accomplishment.

Both of the co-defenders will then debit -26 credits from each of their accounts, and they will each pay the +26 to the successful contractor. The contractor's achievement of +26x2=+52 credits is happily awarded into his account. Many gamblers settle up at the end of a tournament and exchange their credits or poker chips or tally sticks for monetary value. But casual gamers might prefer more enticing rewards, such as raspberries, dildos, buds, sexual favors, and breathtakingly dangerous kisses. It's an amaZING zero-sum game, so a certain amount of raspberry sharing, honey dripping, spliff passing, lube squirting, recipe exchanging, and game~golem cranking seems perhaps more appropriate than any trivial "sordid topic of coin". Competitive tournaments might be fun in an abstract sense for people's enjoyment of gaming practises; but cooperative alternative "tournament channels" might be fun in a concrete sense for people's enjoyment of both real and imaginary "melpomene and terpsichore". Instead of focusing on a notion of "winners and losers" in a competition, the leatherfairies and cosmic dancers usually appreciate a more divine game around the spirits of cooperation. We don't have to have a "dance-off" every time we dance; usually we might prance simply for the joy of playing and singing and twinkling around each other. Sex and dance and music and art don't have to be competitions, we can play things for fun instead. Capice?

the most optimal interactions (channel 4, deal 3, trick X ~DESTINY)

The game was PLAYed, and the wise bidder was able to succeed with his contract. His game was NOT LOST because his strategies were excellent with this deal. His opponents did the bEST they could BUTTPLAYed with cards which were not able to foil the contract AnyWAY. When they saw the dispositions of Destiny, the Medium's magical Devil and the Initiate's sWords of surrender had another perfect conversation with the Dealer's aeon Angel of emergence. Most card players find it predictable, but rewarding.

Coalesce, re-concresce, count the points in the stacks, shove the dimensional axes into the universal vortices while you facilitate with the foolish fantasies, then have a laugh as the game~golem appreciates a meta-score of interest only to the Oracle; and we'll dream of a day when the dance of Titanomaxia will leap and jazz and jizz its way through the tarot garden in another invocation of reverie. Don't forget to share your fortune cookies.

the most optimal interactions (channel 4, deal 3, trick X ~DESTINY), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Dealer (Contractor) = You have no more decisions. Your final card turned out to be the 20 Angel of Emergence who was positioned all along as co-titanic unassailable top-of-the-Trumps with his neighboring cosmic 21 dealt in your hand (a perfect co-adjacent sequence at the tony edge of infinity). It was your Destiny to keep those until they "tied off the knot on the balloon-animal's butthole" at the end of the dance. Congratulations on a successful contract, you will be able to settle your scorings momentarily, as everybody sees which discards and dispositions resulted deductively by playing Titanomaxia.

Initiate = You have no more decisions. Your final card is revealed to be the 5 sWords of defeat which was part of the amazing supermajority of cards in the element of Air which you'd been dealt at the beginning. You had ten of the fourteen dancers in that color, and you used them optimally; but the contractor is still able to beat your co-defending side by an ultra-slim margin. Well, you did fantastically, kept your debits to a minimum as you played against the contract; and your team can be proud of demonstrating the most favorable tactics with the cards you were dealt. Your dance invoked a paradigm of elegance.

Medium = You have no more decisions, and you are able to place the final card in the sequence of DESTINY into the last position in the tricks on the tableau. The very last card to come out of this deal is the 15 Devil who has been hiding in your Aethereal underworld all along. He joins the 5 sWords of Air as your team blows kisses to the winning 20 Angel of Emergence. When the 15 Devil and the 20 Emergence Angel have these conversations, we always think of the gorgeous inner workings of enormous cuckoo clocks, where some sundial points away from the heavens while some orrery points at the stars, or vice versa, and it's more amaZING than a customizable Player Piano. It's like having a magical Player Piano with a genie and some fairies inside, and when you rub the genie's belly OUT! pop some of these fortune cookies which tell you stories about how everybody danced and then you get some interesting pictures of how everybody played during the Ultimate Saga of Titanomaxia. Congratulations on your card 15 Devil of DESTINY, you did the best with what you were dealt in the Medium position (neither first nor last to go into the dancing, but definitely one of the prettiest to ever be found at this locus).

Scansion:

Dealer (Contractor) = show your final dancer in the destiny sequence as your 20 Emergence with the Angel blows the trumpet signifying the gates of judgment (waving and bowing and blowing cosmic kisses, you are the Aeon awakening from the dream.)

Initiate = you now show your final dancer as you come to the end of the destiny sequence when you'd invoked the Tenth Initiation of the Ultimate Saga of Titanomaxia tournaments in the Trilemma Supra channels. The end of this Third Deal in the Fourth Channel is the conclusion of the tenth game with permutations of these players. Your 5 sWords in the Air are a sign of the Impossible being made Real, of being given lemons and having to make lemonade, of dealing with a tough situation and turning it into raspberries!

Medium = you have the ecstatic duty of showing your final dancer deity in the destiny sequence as your 15 Devil of Playful Powers is the happy terminus of the tricking on the tableau. You LOST the struggle against the contract, but you and your remarkably Airy friend had the most optimal interactions with the heavenly titanic angels. WE TRUST IN LIBERTY. Pink triangles are perfect here. Away with the fairies, give congratulations to the opponent's genie bidding, and show them all how you sport a magical costume for the amusement of the cosmic tribe.

Contractor scores +1 Tricky Point for the empty tierce (no face cards). This is added to their previous 34 for a subtotal of 35 points at the end of the tableau as the tempo ceases and the Destiny sequence closes the tricking when they finish this ultimate Trick X. All they need to do now is examine the tricky piles with the discarded tierces (Y and Z) to confirm the process of deduction and settle the scorecards. Let's say a gracious "thanks" to the game~golem who very impartially recorded the mechanics of the dance cards, let's marvel at the "music-box" quality of the Dybbuk who shows us the automatic final sequence of Destiny, and let's ponder the meta-scores which would amuse only the Oracle during the Ultimate Saga of Titanomaxia.

NOT ART, or art; bricolage, or A-way with-Out Magic (channel 4, deal 3,trick W)

NOT ART, or art; bricolage, or NOT A-way with-OuT Magic

We now see the Surtout des Atouts, the unbeatable highest key "terminal" card of the deck, the TITAN (unassailable unmovable 21 of trumps) whose ultimate disposition was always unchangeable and always relevant to the concerns of the WIZARD (number 1 Ace of trumps Magician variable). The player holding the superlative Titan was also dealt some wonderful dancers alongside the DEMON (number 0 unsuitable fool-ish Joker excuse.) It was an amaZING delight for the game~golem to watch the Lovingest dancers of the Cosmic Tribe, to see the tableaux shared by the King of Mostest, the Mage of Leastest, and the Jester of Nothingest, choreographed with all their friends in the tarot garden.

Nobody can change the contractor's successful scoring now, so they're able to timewARP the end of the scorecards, wRAP up the deal, settle up their tournament winnings, and release the deck at last so it might hopefully be hard~shuffled for another game some day. Away with the fairies, away with their counsel, NOT all who wander ARe losT, for some are individually twisted and yet able to triumph, BUT others team up together and give credit to the most delightful plays with many clever moves on the dancecards. Some gamblers exchange their credits for monetary value, but casual gamers might prefer more enticing rewards such as raspberries or breathtakingly dangerous kisses. There's always a delightful ZING to the re-Integration of the wHole! Oh goodness, stick them in there, we love it!!

NOT ART, or art; bricolage, or A-way with-Out Magic (channel 4, deal 3, trick W), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Medium = This is your final lead, and your two remaining cards of the 14 (Eric Ganther's artist) and 15 (stevee's devil) in the Void are now co-adjacent and effectively equal to each other. You play your Art 14 of Temperamental trumps, although you know it will be captured by the opponent's angelic co-Titans, as it makes no difference which of those two dancers come at the netherworld here.

Dealer (Contractor) = Your final two cards are the co-adjacent 21 and 20 of the Void who have jointly held the co-Titan position throughout this entire deal. They were unassailable all along, you will win these final two tricks, and it makes no difference in which order you reveal them here to scoop up the remaining several cards. You show everybody how you have the World in your hands, and overtrump with the 21 Aethereal king of honour along the multiverse-axis, heavenly cosmic dancer at the end of the Universe.

Initiate = Both of your final cards are empty "pip cards" with no extra points to score, so it makes no difference in which order you acquiesce now. You play your lowest 7 sWords of Futility, a whistle into the vanishing winds, but it's a surrender of relief. You know you have absolutely minimized the expense of the contract payment, and could not possibly optimize the scores further. Good job, you clever player!

Scansion:

Medium = surrender with temperance, Artist 14 of the Aether.

Dealer = overtrumps, Aether 21 TITAN is the unbeatable Key card in the scoring trilemma as part of your Destiny sequence.

Initiate = void, and devoid of trump cards, unfavorably dispose of 7 sWords in the Air, sigh of relief.

Contractor scores +4 points for the Key TITAN Cosmos terminal card (oudlers/ bouts/ honours/ "Le Surtout des Atouts", the unbeatable 21 of trumps), plus +1 Tricky Point for the tierce, no face cards. These 5 are added to his previous 29 for a new subtotal of 34 points at the end of this penultimate Trick W. The Dealer will lead into the next (ultimate) Trick X to collect the final tierce of Destiny, and then they'll be able to settle their scorekeeping when the discarded tierces are thereafter confirmed by this process of elimination (Y and Z).

OvER the moon and away ~ every time i rub the genie's tummy (channel 4,deal 3, trick V)

instead of crazy poetry, i will attempt plainspoken meta-analysis when The Moon is done dancing here:

OvER the moon and away ~ every time i rub the genie's tummy

OvER the moon and away ~ every time i rub the genie's tummy (channel 4, deal 3, trick V), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Dealer (Contractor) = You'll be able to capture the final two of these three remaining tierces with your unassailable co-titans, the 21 and 20 of trumps. But here you must lead with your last card in the mundane elements: it's time to give up your Π Clown of Fire to the opponents. Out he dances gaily, his huge rod stuck up and burning brightly, with a crazy laugh because despite his sacrifice you know your contract is now guaranteed to succeed!

Initiate = You can deduce the obvious: your teammate still holds trumps, so you are able to favorably dispose of any element here. Your final face card is free at last: the graceful sea Princess of the Waters sings in acceptance of fate. You know your Π Pion of Cups (Valet de Coeurs, Jack of Hearts, Page of Chalices) is able to escape here and count toward your side's Tricky Pile, and you will have no further optimizations upon which to decide. But you now have a good guess about the outcome of the contract. You are happy-sad and wistful-cheerful because your side wins this trick but will probably be unable to stop the contractor from winning this deal. C'est la vie.

Medium = You know the contractor still holds the unstoppable 21 and 20 of trumps, so it doesn't matter which of your three remaining dancers in the Aether you play here. Your 14, 15, and 18 of trumps are all now co-adjacent. Your Sun has already set, so the Moon comes up here. You capture this tierce with your Aether 18 OvER the moon and away with the fairies into the twinkling glimmer in the skies. You beckon to the Dybbuk who has now arrived to dance with you, to synchronize with your cycles, to match your tempo because all further moves by all players will be automatic! This brings us to our DESTINY! Free us, and we shall dance, darling!

Scansion:

Dealer (Contractor) = lead with a leap and laugh, Π Pion clown, shaman of Fire (valet de trèfles, page of rods, jack of clubs, however the silly name tag fits!)

Initiate = favorably dipose of the graceful Π Pion mermaid, final face card from the Court of Cups, dear hearts.

Medium = void, 18 trumps for the last time on your side of the cycles, Moon over the sea and into the dark (and thus "No more soup for you.")

Defense scores +1 tête point for the Π Pion clown of Wands, plus +1 tête point for the Π Pion princess of Cups, plus +1 Tricky Point for the tierce. These 3 are added to their previous 38 for a grand total of 41 points on their defending side at the end of this Trick V. The Medium will lead into the next move. When the Initiate chose to dispose of the princess into this tierce before the Medium tricked with the Moon, that was the final possible decision any player could make which would be able to change any outcome of the scores; thus we say the final automatic moves are subsequently "handled by the Dybbuk", comically speaking.

~ ~ ~ I hope i can plainly explain some meta-analysis. ~ ~ ~

All card players will agree the sequence of the final few remaining items to appear in order on the tableau can not change the outcome of the contract scoring, thus we playfully refer to this as the sequence of "DESTINY" because the items are somewhat mechanically forced into their places by all of the previous decisions which influenced their ultimate dispositions. The Destiny is one of the three loci of the incident; the others were the Prognostication (dealing and bidding, announcing, optional preparatory information) and the Initiation (instigation of the contract with the least amount of information available to begin the tricking and scoring, until the tempo changes).

I always enjoy these three loci of each incident because they give us these sorts of "fortune cookie" outcomes as we organize the chaos into a game. There are other bits of game meta-information which can also be amusingly viewed for allegory. For example, "titanic line of succession" is the sequence of cards (beginning with the highest 21 of trumps) unassailable over the course of the tricking, working it's way sort of like a Plinko chip on The Price Is Right, dropping downward through the various positions (via whichever card or cards might be the "unassailable" remaining) … until it reaches a final designation of the item (or items) which could not be beaten by any move.

Another consideration is the rules of discarding when a contractor bids "take" or "guard", because the six items they throw away must never be terminals nor Ω archons (neither "kings" nor "keys"), nor can people ordinarily discard trumps in most situations. So you typically see a blend of six mundane elemental cards in each of those bids. When a contract-taker decides to bid "without looking" or "against the Bitch", you always see six random cards at the end whose dancers are gradually deduced during the tricking, and these have certain statistics regarding the amount of trump and/or face cards and/or pip cards found. These Bitches and discards always give us six interesting items grouped together for one reason or another, that's why i think of them as sort of "fortune cookie" sequences based on their canonical hierarchies.

Another peculiarity which is narrower in scope but interesting as a meta-observation (sort of mini- fortune cookie) is the rare case when a player wishes to declare a "Handful" but they're in a situation where they have a surplus beyond the required amount for their announcement. A simple, double, or triple "Handful" is when a player has one-half, two-thirds, or three-quarters supermajority of their twenty-four cards dealt in the Void as trumps. This means they can declare thirteen, sixteen, or eighteen dancers in the Aether (Atouts/ trumps/ void). If they happen to fortunately have slightly more than the thirteen, sixteen, or eighteen dancers needed to expose their supermajority, there are rules governing which one or two items they might be able to luckily conceal. So in these rare instances we find a sort of tiny "fortune cookie" usually consisting of only one or two cards, and they are specifically cards in the Major Arcana (the 1 thru 21 of trumps). The mechanics of the game tend to favor the items nearest to the terminals, so you more frequently expect the 21 or 1 to be hidden, or perhaps the 20 or 19 up near the 21 (because of strategic information withholdings away from the opponents). But occasionally there is a supermajority sequence where we find some other bizarre card in the void which is intentionally kept concealed for better strategic value, so you might have an important reason to pick some lower or middling trump card to hide because of its adjacency to some other revealed sequence.

If you have an incredible sort of "Chelem" (Slam) hand, and you have almost the entire suit of twenty-one trumps, there may be several trump cards which you keep concealed in the Void despite your supermajority announcement, so that would be a very rare fortune cookie in the Major Arcana.

Also, another consideration whenever a person announces a Simple, Double, or Triple Handful is the combination of mundane elements which they never show (along with the optionally unshown trumps if they are so blessed.) This means they might hold eleven, eight, or six cards "behind the veil" while announcing the supermajority, almost entirely from the 'minor' four suits and favoring the higher face cards, very rarely with trumps; you often find the Fool-ish Demon joker unsuitable pseudo-zero there. So you have a skewed combination of mostly elemental cards, but they are somewhat chaotically dealt and appear almost randomly. It's like a fortune cookie whose typographer might not have spoken your language the same way as you do, but it's nevertheless grammatically correct. Capiche?

These are always mechanical game reasons, but the quasi-unpredictable nature allows us to laugh at them like fortunes coming out of cookies. They're not random like bingo balls coming out of the chute, but they're chaotic and situational and ephemeral and suitably unpredictable to be of interest. Don't you love to encounter a random joke, quip, aphorism, or symbol now and then?

At any rate, these sorts of arrangements give us peculiar symbol combinations based on a game but filled with genuine meaning in the moment because of the mathematics of the scoring and the rules of the system. You could probably do the same with a variety of other card games (bridge? whist? spades? contract 500?), but i'm not sure how the symbolism would work. I'm hoping there's a sort of universality like a Rubik's Cube, where it doesn't matter which colors you paint on the sides of the cube, as long as you follow a system of having each side show a unique color pattern on its grid of squares. I hope that explains part of why i love these amusements of mental hopscotch: they allow me to meditate on flows of complex symbology beyond the simple structures of a merry little game. Psychedelics enhance the imagination and stimulate delightful apophenia. OvER the moon and away! Dance, dear fairies!

When i was younger i could solve a Rubik's Cube in under five minutes, but now it usually takes me ten. I can still solve the Rubik's tetrahedron in under three minutes, but it only has four axes instead of six, so i don't know whether that's anything to brag about. I remember being curious about the mathematical patterns of some of the moves which were convenient shortcuts to certain positionings, but i don't recall ever imagining more complex symbology. The Cosmic Tribe cards are sufficiently aesthetically complex to inspire me when i toy with the art and listen to music and inhale and enjoy the sensuality. It's as though i owned a magic jukebox, and every time i rub the genie's tummy— OUT! pop some queer fortune cookies!

(go ahead: rub the genie's tummy. don't forget to exhale.)

ALmOsT A WATER spOuT (channel 4, deal 3, trick U)

The whirlwind was ALmOsT A WATER spOuT on Bellingham Bay. Tony and i were at the window while it was storming on Friday afternoon, the 11th of November 2011 (11/11/11). The winds were whipping and howling, blowing rain forcefully against the building, stripping the autumn leaves from the trees in the neighborhood, swirling them hundreds of feet up into the air. I was playing with the tarot cards, hoping the power wouldn't go out. Then Tony exclaimed, "Look at that water spout forming right next to the sailboats!" As we watched, we could see the whirlwind making a circular vortex on the surface of the Bay right near the shoreline in front of our home where many sailboats were anchored during the storm. The mist sprayed up in a circular spiral which was almost forming an upright column of water, and this vortex danced quickly over the the foaming sea, blasting right over three or four of the boats.

"It's coming right for us!" he said (in imitation of Jimbo and Ned on South Park.) It certainly was! It came right up over the beach and lost it's spiral column shape as it hit the land along the edge of Boulevard Park by the (toxic waste sites of) former Cornwall Avenue landfill. As the mists were losing their circular formation the wind howled so fiercely i thought the gusts might damage the roof and windows. Suddenly hail began pounding against the glass. The pellets of ice were smaller than peanuts, a few millimeters thick, and the force of the gail was hammering them against the building with a super loud hissing sound. Ice began forming around the corners of the window ledge. The hail was hitting the ventilation chimneys on the roof with so much force, it sounded like somebody was using the metal vents as a drumkit. I wondered if i might be experiencing a tornado again for the first time in over thirty years, and began considering the option of hiding under the desk.

But fortunately, after just a minute, the hail began dying down and the howling winds lost some of their strength. The gail continued to cause all of the leaves and debris to stream sideways, blowing the dirty shower of particles and ice up the street, pulling many of the leaves off the neighborhood trees. After a couple nervous minutes things became a bit more calm and less vicious, although rain and breezes continued. The sailboats didn't look like they had any obvious damage (everybody had furled their canvasses into tight rolls before the storm), although a couple of them might have been moved despite their anchorage.

An eagle flew overhead for a minute, near the south end of the former Georgia-Pacific property, heading toward Fairhaven. That's not at all unusual around here, we see eagles at least a few times per year along this seashore because they have eyries in the cliffs near Ferndale, Lummi Island, and other stretches of the local coast. It must have been stirred out of its home by the tremendous winds. It was only in the sky briefly before heading out of sight around the southwest shoulder of South Hill.

"Wow." Tony and i were impressed. It was a bit thrilling to see such crazy meteorology, but it made me nervous. Fortunately none of the power lines seemed harmed, and i didn't see any damage to the building. The Bellingham airport across the Bay only recorded winds of 50kph, but i'm sure our shoreline must have experienced gusts above the 80kph range. Some weather stations in the San Juan Islands and along the coast all the way from Anacortes (in Skagit County) to Delta and Richmond (in British Columbia, near the Vancouver airport) recorded gusts over 100kph. It was a relief to watch the weather settling back down to a less ferocious rainshower as we approached sunset.

I had been working on the moves of the next trick on the tarot tableau. The three items in the tierce had been calculated and selected, and i had been arranging them into an aesthetically pleasant configuration when the ALmOsT-WATER-spOuT blew over. Tony looked at the illustrations on the cards as i pointed out their symbolic names and allegorical qualities.

The 6 Cups is the symbol of Multiplication, increase, expansion, and spreading of the element of Water.

The 13 Aether of Trumps is the symbol of Death, intense cyclical transformation, and horrible fears transcended by a dove of peace escaping from a vortex of destruction.

The 8 Cups is the symbol of vast Drainage, great outpourings, emotional gushing, and the flow of anger.

My, how we laughed! Oh goodness, we chuckled and giggled at the gaming coincidence. "Oops! I'm sorry! My bad!" i joked, "I guess i should be more careful with my tarot cards, eh?!"

It reminds of that quip from Steven Wright: "Last night i was playing poker with my buddies, but we were using a deck of tarot cards. I got a Full-House, and three people died!"

ALmOsT A WATER spOuT (channel 4, deal 3, trick U), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Medium = You have a single dancer remaining in the Cups of Water, and three dancers in the Aether. Your three trump cards are the 14, 15, and 18; whereas the contractor's remaining three trump cards are the 21, 20, and 13, plus he holds another Fire dancer. In order to preserve one of your cards in the Void, you need to force the contractor to play one of his by leading with your 6 of Cups. It's the last thing you can accomplish with the distribution of elements which was dealt to your hand.

Dealer (Contractor) = You are required to trump into the Void of the Water being drained by your opponents, so you play your lowest 13 of Death. Now you have no more choices to make. All of your options will hereafter be easy to predict because there is only one way for you to optimize your score now. You have no logical alternatives.

Initiate = You are required to follow suit into the Water with your final dancer among the fountains, so you let the 8 Cups be drained away. You will only have one more opportunity to make any further optimizations after this move (deciding when to dispose of your final face card) and then you'll have no remaining options which could affect any scoring outcomes.

Scansion:

Medium = lead to the end of the river as the delta fans into the sea: 6 Cups spreading.

Dealer (Contractor) = void, 13 trumps, Death, and reach your final optimal state.

Initiate = acquiesce with your outpouring of 8 Cups as you near that ultimate ocean.

Contractor scores +1 Tricky Point for the empty tierce (no face cards); this is added to his previous 28 for a new subtotal of 29 at the end of this Trick U. As the players' options are eliminated, the mechanics of the game~golem's scoring on the dance card become formally predictable. The Dybbuk is soon to be nigh when all moves become utterly automatic.

tarOT ALLegorizes, in principle (channel 4, deal 3, trick T)

tarOT ALLegorizes, in principle.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

here and there, some robOT ALL day scrapes the web

for (Creative Commons) content to repost;

that LOT, ALL a bunch of scammers!

this idiOT, ALL in a spirit of sharing freely

did nOT ALLow for

the possibility of such reprehensibility

until the interweb-spiders and robOT crAwLers

did ALready spOT my pOsTs

and reprint them ALL over the internet.

But that's just the way things work in this evil world, right?

Can't fight the tOTALitarian fascistic system?

The joke's on them. Attention was nOT at ALL what i'd wanted

but now there are computers around the world

listening to me sing

night and day;

computers whose software (robOT ALgorithms) learn my

thOughTs, and repeat them (poorly, but frequently)

ALL the time, ALL Over The place,

spreading the silly songs

dispersing the leatherfaery magic

immOrTALizing the gaiety

cOnverTing ALL the queer diary chronicles

to multiple cOpies of biTs and byTes

which sTOre ALL those crazy tales for pOsTerity

for ALL time (until the robOTs decease

and ALL technology sTOps)

immOrTALizing the pOeTry and ALL the phOTos

leaving copies of the pOsTs for ALL perpetuity

ALthough i might live just a little while more

they ALL will keep singing my songs for a lOT LOnger

unintended consequences—

but nOT ALL bad.

tarOT ALLegorizes, in principle (channel 4, deal 3, trick T), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Dealer (Contractor) = You have one more dancer on Fire, and four more dancers in Aether. You know your opponent's trumps are the 14, 15, 18, 19; whereas your trumps are the 13, 16, 20, 21. The sequences of earlier tricks have deductively proven that the Medium holds one more dancer in Water; and the Initiate must hold two more dancers in the Air and one more in the Water. In order to maximize the number of any tricks you may take hereafter, you need to eliminate one of those high trump cards in your opponent's hand. The rules of the game require a player to overtrump any Aether already present in an ongoing tierce; by playing the 13 you would only poke out one of his lower trumps, but by using the 16 here you will be able to force him to use one of the higher dancers. You take advantage of this trump power with your 16 Tower. Zap! Lightning and thunder signify the heavens crashing down on your opponents! The sky is falling! You rain your meteoric shower of sparks on them fiercely.

Initiate = Although it's possible the contractor is bluffing with this lead, you have doubts. He might be plotting to induce you to throw a face card into this tierce, only to snatch it away if your teammate has no higher trumps. But is it possible your teammate has exhausted all higher dancers in the Aether? A careful count of the remaining cards in the Void suggests there are probably still several good trump cards in your buddy's hand. You've thought about it, you've meditated on the possibilities, you've considered the principle strategies, and you've seen enough to make a decision. Your remaining face card from the Court of sWords floats silently into the Air with a smirk, having deduced the wisest option. You dispose of the Π Pion of Air (Valet de Piques, Jack of Spades, Page of Blades) hopefully in a favorable fashion.

Medium = It is mandatory to overtrump the 16 Power Tower. What do you have higher in the skies? Your 18 and 19 are adjacent, equal in capabilities here. If you spend one of those sky dancers, the other will remain for some potential usage shortly hereafter, but you don't want to give your teammate high hopes which are too lofty and unfounded. You play the highest of your cards now, perhaps leaving an impression that you are depleted, in order to hint to your partner at the need for caution. Keep the 18 Moon hidden in broad daylight! Just as the New Moon is impossible to see in the glare of the day, you will keep your 18 concealed; the 19 Sun shines and blazes, rescuing the Π Pion Principled Meditator of out of the Airs and into the heavens. Smile and bask in the warm glow!

Scansion:

Dealer (Contractor) = push upwards, Aether 16 meteor shower power tower.

Initiate = optimistically dispose of the Π Pion of Air, principled thoughts.

Medium = 19 overtrumps, Sun shines a ray of hope, and uplifts gloriously.

Defense scores +1 tête point for the Π Pion face card, plus +1 Tricky Point for the tierce. These 2 are added to their previous 36 for a new subtotal of 38 points at the end of this Trick T. The Medium overtakes the tempo and will lead into the next move.

siPS and slip (channel 4, deal 3, trick S)

Tomorrow may bring our doom

but tonight we have the luxury

to sit and drink in our safe room

so let's take siPS and slip into reverie.

The liquids bubble and your goblet overflows,

the murky DreamDesigner deftly stirs

with tricks and secrets only he knows.

The curtains begin to close

as we drift into fantasies he confers.

In the reflections on his dais it seems

we have nothing to grip in our throes

as the potion spills and down it goes

leaving us with naught but our dreams.

siPS and slip (channel 4, deal 3, trick S), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Medium = You need to choose among your six remaining dancers. In the Aether you have the 14 and 15 (Artist of Temperance, and Devil of Frenzy) as well as the 18 and 19 (Moon and Sun aligning in syzygy along the ecliptic.) In the Waters you have the 4 of Luxuries and the 6 of Pleasures. You are aware of your opponent's remaining trumps in the Aether (21, 20, 16, and 13) and you are rather confident he also holds the remaining face card in the Fires. So what is his last card? It must be in the Waters, but will it be higher than any of the Cups belonging to your team? Or will your teammate be the player holding the highest remaining Cups? You'd like to know where the last two face cards in the Waters are distributed. Well, it's not going to be helpful to lead into the Aether here, so you might as well play your lowest Cups instead. At least there might be a reasonable chance of your teammate capturing this tierce. Draining the various Chalices in your hand, you decide to take a few siPS from the luxurious LOw 4 Cups of Luxury. Tomorrow we may die, but today we raise our flagons in a cheerful toast, expressing our highest hopes despite our deepest troubles.

Dealer (Contractor) = Indeed, you arrive at your final dancer in the element of Water. Your Lifeguard swims among the dolphins: the Knight of Cups comes bubbling up from beneath the deep sea to burst above the surface in great colorful splashes, keeping you safely headed toward your target. He is the Υ Upsilon of Water, the Cavalier of Hearts, le Chevalier des Coeurs, the SeaHorseMan of the Court of Chalices.

Initiate = You are unable to swim higher than your opponent (the contractor) so you acquiesce with your lowest 5 Cups of Disappointments. The rainbows of hopefulness have been flipped upside-down, fizzling out, reduced to piles of ashes. A pentagram marks these 5 Cups overflowing with ash… but will you find any last glowing embers of Hope when you turn the ashes over?

Scansion:

Medium = take luxurious siPS from the 4 Cups of Water as they overflow with dreamcatchers.

Dealer (Contractor) = capture this tierce with the Υ Upsilon of Water, your lifeguard, the Knight of Cups.

Initiate = acquiesce with 5 Cups spilling ashes of disappointment.

Contractor scores +2 tête points for the Υ Upsilon face card, plus +1 Tricky Point for the tierce. These 3 are added to his previous 25 for a new subtotal of 28 points at the end of this Trick S. He seizes control of the tempo and leads into the next move.

TALL dark stranger will help the rebellion (channel 4, deal 3, trick R)

gazing into the smoke, mists, clouds and fog, what can we see?

figures begin to take shape, faces are gradually revealed…

a TALL dark stranger will help the rebellion

TALL dark stranger will help the rebellion (channel 4, deal 3, trick R), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Dealer (Contractor) = It's still too early to attempt to overpower your opponent's trump cards, so you must continue depleting them with the expenditure of your long suit of Wands of Fire. Your next card from that color (Rods) is the 4 Hands Reaching For Rewards.

Initiate = Although you can't be certain of the locations of the remaining trump cards possessed by your teammate and by your opponent, it appears you might still escape with another face card favorably disposed into this tierce. You are hoping for a TALL dark stranger to come along and rescue your Chevalier de Piques, Cavalier of sWords, Υ Upsilon of Airs. Although it's getting more risky with each move, you believe you should allow your most valuable dancer into this trick. The Rebel Prince from the Court of sWords leaps into the winds.

Medium = Unbeknownst to your teammate, you actually possess more trumps than your opponent. You are able to rescue your friend's face card. Selecting your lowest dancer in the Aether, your TALL dark stranger (11 of Strength and Lust) will assist the rebellion against the contractor. The TALL figure in the Void helps the Prince avoid estrangement, and whisks him to safety.

Scansion:

Dealer (Contractor) = reach upward with more force, 4 Wands of outstretched arms, hands trying to pluck the fruits.

Initiate = favorably dispose of the Υ Upsilon of sWords, the Rebel bravely leaping.

Medium = void, 11 trumps, Strength of a TALL dark stranger whose fortitude helps the Rebel.

Defense scores +2 tête points for the Υ Upsilon face card, plus +1 Tricky Point for the tierce. These 3 are added to their previous 33 for a new subtotal of 36 points at the end of this Trick R, and the Medium reacquires the tempo.

NO TO WAR, yes to gaiety (channel 4, deal 3, trick Q)

NO TO WAR, yes to gaiety;

opposing harm, Friendship's our deity.

We dream of peace, lift cups high in hopes,

put an end to tired warrior tropes.

Fairies need no approval,

care not whether you accept;

we'll dance away, night and day,

in the realms where fantasies are kept.

NO TO WAR, yes to gaiety (channel 4, deal 3, trick Q), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Medium = You've expended all of your dancers in the Air, Fire, and Earth, so now you have the final three among the Waters and the final five among the Aether. You are aware of the contractor's remaining trump cards, particularly his co-titans of 21 and 20, so you don't think it would be at all favorable to lead in that direction. Thus you must select from the Cups of Water: your lowest 3 Chalices of Faery Fraternity are the friendliest choice.

Dealer (Contractor) = After the Bitching, you discarded all your lower Cups and kept only the highest dancers in the Court of Waters. Here you may happily play your Prince Of Dreams, the Queer Queen of Hearts, La Dame des Coeurs, the Ψ Psion of Waters, Stevee Postman's magical dance in the lotus of cosmic fantasies.

Initiate = Your Cups of Waters are all rather low, so you acquiesce with your gorgeous Ace of Bliss. C'est la vie.

Scansion:

Medium = Lead with fairy friendship, 3 Cups of togetherness.

Dealer (Contractor) = capture this moment with the Prince of Dreams, the Ψ Psion of Cups.

Initiate = accept the situation blissfully with the Ace of Cups.

Contractor scores +3 tête points for the Ψ Psion face card, plus +1 Tricky Point for the tierce. These 4 are added to their previous 21 for a new subtotal of 25 at the end of this Trick Q as they shift the tempo to lead into the next move.

BREAth of relief (channel 4, deal 3, trick P)

an AREA to lay BARE the remaining strong and weak qualities

a BREAth of relief when the Words are ruled acceptable

and once again into the BREAch

BREAth of relief (channel 4, deal 3, trick P), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Dealer (Contractor) = As you continue to lead from your longest suit in the Wands of Fire, the opponents will be able to more accurately deduce most of the remaining Cosmic Tribe dancers in your hand. This might be worrisome as they look for ways to foil your plans, but you must persevere. The 3 Wands of Virtue are a trinity becoming a unity, burning away the troubles and finding goodness in the results. The three stages are coming to pass: planning, courage, and endurance. You expect the co-defenders to escape with another valuable face card, but you know you must allow this to happen in order to work out the necessary choreography of the rest of the trump cards. You bravely continue to extend your Wands in their direction.

Initiate = Here you may again favorably dispose of some valuable card because you expect your co-defender to have more trumps in the Void. You select the next dancer in the Court of sWords. The Queen of sWords in the Air is the most rewarding choice, according to the rules and logic of your position.

Medium = You are glad to trump this tierce and defend the Queen of Air for your team. From your lowest trumps you select the 12 Hanged Man, the Scarlet Pimpernel on the edge of danger, snatching the Ψ Psion Queen from the guillotine.

Scansion:

Dealer (Contractor) = lead 3 Wands of Fire, virtuously.

Initiate = dipsose of the Queen of Air, logically.

Medium = void, 12 trumps gratefully, as your Man in the Aether rescues another monarch.

Defense scores +3 tête points for the Ψ Psion Queen, plus +1 Tricky Point for the tierce. These 4 are added to their previous 29 for a new subtotal of 33 points at the end of this Trick P. The Medium restores control of the tempo leading to the next move.

NO WONDER i love this queer game! (channel 4, deal 3, trick O)

NO WONDER i love this queer game!

NO WONDER i love this queer game! (channel 4, deal 3, trick O), originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Medium = As you did earlier, you may lead into the Pentacles of Earth with your final 7 Disks of Perseverance. Don't be frustrated if the contractor trumps this tierce, because you will be forcing him to spend a trump card without any profit, and your co-conspirator is safe from harm because a lack of cards in the Aether allows him to dispose of any useless pip card from some weak element. Although you might hesitate when considering the intentional loss of a trick, do not fear failure here.

Dealer (Contractor) = You may spend the other trump card which had been prognosticated by the Bitch: the number 10 of the Aether is the
Road to Fortune,
La Rota della Fortuna,
La Rota
rota rota ro ta rot arot tarot
Vortumna rolls the dice, and your luck holds…
Wheeeee!

Initiate = As you see this trick is taken by the contractor, you may unfavorably dispose of any inutile pip card. Your lowest 10 sWords in the Air is thrown here, as the curtains are drawn ever further back to expose the few remaining mysteries of the distribution.

Scansion:

Medium = lead onward through 7 marbled Disks of Earth, do not fear failure.

Dealer (Contractor) = void, 10 trumps, Wheeeeeee!

Initiate = unfavorably dispose of 10 sWords in the Air, a glimpse through the vapors.

Contractor scores +1 Tricky Point for the empty tierce (no face cards); this is added to his previous 20 for a new subtotal of 21 points at the end of this Trick O. The tempo spins around to favor the Dealer as he leads to the next move.

he'll survive without society's imprimatur (channel 4, deal 3, trick N)

NOT ALL WERe AMongST the loST;

HALF DO arise among the found.

The society pushes them mercilessly;

but a hermit helps them stand their ground.

The community is relentless,

but the Ardent try to resist.

Most are swept up in the pitiless system;

But a few of them are missed.

The senseless oppression of society

curses most, rarely uplifts;

but the hermit sheds light of wisdom:

truth and imagination are his gifts.

Who will listen to his ugly facts?

Who will heed his message at the edge of Styx?

Most would avoid his homely face,

Averting their eyes as he lurks by his door of bricks.

They dislike the revelations of his lantern:

realities they'd rather evade and deny.

Most would live in perpetual nonsense,

rather than face honesty before they die.

But it's the nonsense which he dispels,

the meaningless memes of an unintelligent world;

he brings perspective and pragmatism:

truthfulness which is unfurled.

He's a WISE INDIVIDUAL without need of acceptance,

he'll survive without society's imprimatur.

But wouldn't it be respectful and munificent

to heed his intimations, and consider?

he'll survive without society's imprimatur (channel 4, deal 3, trick N, originally uploaded by KevinHutchins314.

Strategy:

Dealer (Contractor) = You must relentlessly burn through your suit of Wands, using the Fire to cremate the opponents' trumps. You lead with your lowest 9 Wands of the Community, night and day, on and on, merciless.

Initiate = You have no more trump cards in the Void. You must dispose of some card here, and you expect it to be favorably taken by a trump from your co-conspirator. With the entire court of Swords in the Air you are eager for them to be rescued away from the contractor. Now is the time to give up your dancer with the most tête points: you are able to bring your King of Swords (Ω Archon of Air, le Roi de Piques) beyond the Underworld with help from a strange friend.

Medium = You must trump into the Void, and so your 9 Hermit is able to rescue the King of sWords and transport him back across Styx and out of danger. Your Hermit is a dancer of incredible value, for someone who is shunned by society and considered to be so ugly. But the unvarnished truth— no matter how harsh and difficult most people find it to accept— is always its own defense. Be strong in your solitude!

Scansion:

Dealer (Contractor) = lead onward, night and day, with 9 Wands of Fire.

Initiate = void, and devoid of trumps, now you favorably dispose of the King of sWords, Ω Archon of Air.

Medium = in the void you are the 9 Hermit of Aether, shining the lantern of clarity and truth.

Defense scores +4 tête points for the Ω Archon (face card), plus +1 Tricky Point for the tierce. These 5 are added to their previous 24 for a new subtotal of 29 points at the end of this Trick N. The Medium now controls the tempo leading into the next move.