invocation 22, channel 7, deal 4, trick J; contract is assured

invocation 22, channel 7, deal 4, trick J; contract is assured

Image by KevinHutchins314
The Initiate chose to "Take" the bid, as the Medium and the Dealer both chose to "Pass". The Initiate became the Contractor and displayed the Bitch's extra six cards to the table, then made a secret discard. Before initiating the tricky dance, the Contractor displayed a supermajority of his cards "in the Void" to earn a "handful" bonus. Then the tricking proceeded for the first ten moves, and it is now paused after the end of Trick J. Due to some very good luck (the Bitch was quite generous) the Contractor is now totally assured of success, and will complete the remaining fourteen tricks in a fashion which he hopes will maximize his score.

The Deal and Score Card for this ongoing Ultimate Saga of Titanomaxia tournaments is illustrated in my previous photo. These tournament intervals are played in the "Trilemma Supra" style of three-player tarot trumps, and i prefer to use the Cosmic Tribe deck as i find it to be the most beautiful as well as the most universally generic type of index/iconography design.

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

Image by KevinHutchins314
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.

* * * 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.)

attempt to connect the watcher in some way to the watched (channel 4, deal 3, Mascot of the ASs~HotSSss at 10th initiation)

Image by KevinHutchins314
The game~golem dutifully records the fabulous choreography of the dance of the Cosmic Tribe. The Oracle is not personally sitting among any particular position of the card players; rather, the Oracle viewpoint is omniscient and unbiased by any individual distribution, and evaluates the overall process with impartiality. This is achieved by attempting to be a detached spectator, merely a witness to the patterns while not being directly involved with them. Of course, holistic arguments and Heisenberg's principles involving Schrödinger's felines might attempt to connect the watcher in some way to the watched. But the Oracle absolutely denies manipulating the tableau in any way! Innocent, agnostic, dispassionate, fair. Divvyne Spreadder oraQyulaire just wants to give your spread a really… nice… reeeading……!

___

Before the soft~shuffles the foundation of the tableau had been put into place with its fey secrets. The Fourth Channel of the Ultimate Saga of Titanomaxia continues in the tarot garden. These Trilemma Supra tournaments had progressed over the course of nine biddings. During the Second Deal of this channel (tournament interval) the dancers were able to achieve the unified disposition of the three KEY terminal cards (the Trilemma). So now they are playing one more hand (the Supra) which will complete this channel of the cosmic game. This session was soft~shuffled a couple times until producing this Third Deal of the Fourth Channel.

The Initiate (first to speak) evaluated his twenty-four Cosmic Tribe dancers:
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]
He chose to "PASS".

The Medium evaluated his twenty-four blessings:
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
He chose to "PASS".

The Dealer evaluated his twenty-four cards:
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]
He chose to "TAKE" the bid. The opponents accepted his announcement and the Dealer became the Contractor.

He showed the Bitch to everybody and this was the Prognostication:
Void 8, fire 8, fire Ten.
earth Ten, fire Ace, Void 10.

The Contractor discreetly absorbed those two Bitch tierces (six cards) into his hand, and then decided on six discards. These are the two unseen tierces he put aside for himself (to be counted into his Tricky Pile at the end of the round):

water 7, earth Ace, earth 5.
air 2, water Ten, air Ace.

Now his secretly rearranged twenty-four cards have become:
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)

A "Slam" ("chelem") is when a player wins all twenty-four tricks of the round. The Contractor reALLY WIShED he could achieve such an amazing bonus situation (as does everybody!), but he WISEly knows this is currently impossible. He makes his confidential écart without mentioning any official desire to Slam: the Contractor's discard invokes the 10th initiation of the Ultimate Saga. The trip is coming on! Dance! Sing! Play! Fuck! Celebrate!

Some gamblers exchange their credits for monetary compensation, but casual gamers may prefer more interesting rewards, such as raspberries, dildos, psychedelic drugs, or breathtakingly dangerous kisses.
___

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

Image by KevinHutchins314
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.

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!

LEGO Card Dealing Robot

Image by cpence
These three kids built a blackjack card-dealing robot out of LEGO. It knew how the original deal worked, how the deal worked after the game began, it had sensors and could remember the players, would talk to you, and so forth.

Though I think this is the only one I have a photo of, there were something like twenty or thirty youth robotics groups at Maker Faire, all with projects to show off. I think it was Ashley who said that this was the largest number of elementary-school age kids interested in science that she'd seen in one place in a long, long time. Very cool.