{"id":903,"date":"2012-05-01T23:13:37","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T23:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/?p=903"},"modified":"2018-01-05T17:19:24","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T17:19:24","slug":"chicago-poker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/blog\/2012\/05\/01\/chicago-poker\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Poker"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Le poker \u00e9tait tr\u00e8s \u00e0 la mode au milieu des ann\u00e9es 2000, et Bruno et moi avons donc, nous aussi, imagin\u00e9 notre jeu de cartes empruntant quelques m\u00e9canismes au poker. Notre inspiration est cependant, comme il y a quelques ann\u00e9es avec mon Corruption, \u00e0 chercher plut\u00f4t du c\u00f4t\u00e9 du stud 5 que du hold’em. Ce dernier, je crois, n’existait d’ailleurs pas dans les ann\u00e9es 20, o\u00f9 se situe l’action de Chicago Poker.<\/p>\n

Chicago Poker est un jeu de cartes faisant appel autant \u00e0 la tactique qu\u2019au bluff, dans lequel le but est de prendre le contr\u00f4le des principaux \u00e9tablissements de la ville \u2013 speakeasies, salles de jeu, clubs de jazz et brasseries \u2013 en jouant, tant\u00f4t visibles et tant\u00f4t cach\u00e9es, des cartes formant des combinaisons de poker. Comme souvent ce genre de jeu, c\u2019est tr\u00e8s tactique \u00e0 deux, et plus incontr\u00f4lable \u00e0 six, mais \u00e7a marche aussi bien dans un cas que dans l\u2019autre.<\/p>\n

Si Chicago Poker emprunte au poker l’ordre des combinaisons, et au stud 5 les cartes parties visibles et parties cach\u00e9es, cela reste fondamentalement un jeu de “gestion de sa main” (pas trouv\u00e9 mieux pour rendre “hand management”), et non une variante du poker. Son esprit est donc finalement plus proche de jeux de cartes comme Schotten Totten ou Cesar et Cl\u00e9opatre, que du poker.<\/p>\n

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Histoire du jeu<\/strong><\/p>\n

Je joue au poker depuis bien longtemps, bien avant la mode actuelle du Hold\u2019Em, et cela se ressent in\u00e9vitablement dans certaines de mes cr\u00e9ations. Dans Corruption, d\u00e9j\u00e0, j\u2019avais utilis\u00e9 un m\u00e9canisme de pose des cartes directement inspir\u00e9 du stud poker. On le retrouve aussi, exploit\u00e9 bien diff\u00e9remment, dans Chicago Poker.<\/p>\n

Chicago Poker est n\u00e9 de l\u2019\u00e9chec d\u2019un projet de jeu de parcours sur le th\u00e8me de l\u2019A\u00e9ropostale qui, malgr\u00e9 bien des tests, bien des bonnes id\u00e9es et bien des versions successives, n\u2019a jamais d\u00e9bouch\u00e9 sur un prototype r\u00e9ellement convaincant, peut-\u00eatre parce que trop d\u2019auteurs y \u00e9taient impliqu\u00e9s. L\u2019aventure nous a quand m\u00eame laiss\u00e9, Bruno et moi, avec le sentiment qu\u2019il y avait encore bien des choses \u00e0 faire \u00e0 partir du poker.<\/p>\n

Nous sommes donc aussit\u00f4t repartis sur une piste enti\u00e8rement diff\u00e9rentes, un jeu de cartes un peu dans l\u2019esprit de Corruption, dont le th\u00e8me permettrait d\u2019exploiter naturellement les r\u00e8gles et les combinaisons du poker. Le th\u00e8me \u00e9tait \u00e9vident, la guerre des gangs aux Etats-Unis sous la prohibition. Comme souvent les bons jeux, celui-ci fut boucl\u00e9 en quelques semaines. Nous situ\u00e2mes l\u2019action de \u00e0 New York, et baptis\u00e2mes le jeu Broadway. Je me documentais sur les personnalit\u00e9s locales de l\u2019\u00e9poque, les Arnold Rothstein, Owney Madden, Texas Guinnan pour mettre les noms qu\u2019il fallait sur les cartes, et nous cr\u00fbmes m\u00eame avoir rapidement trouv\u00e9 un \u00e9diteur, Asmod\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

Quelques mois plus tard, Asmod\u00e9e, dont la politique \u00e9ditoriale avait en effet un peu trop tendance \u00e0 partir dans tous les sens, d\u00e9cidait de renoncer \u00e0 pas mal de projets, dont celui-ci, et nous nous m\u00eemes en qu\u00eate d\u2019un autre \u00e9diteur. Avec sept prototypes \u00e0 imprimer et d\u00e9couper de retour du salon d\u2019Essen, Broadway fut, parmi nos jeux, l\u2019un des deux qui suscita le plus d\u2019int\u00e9r\u00eat chez les \u00e9dieturs. Bruno et moi sommes bien content que ce soit finalement Phalanx qui se soit d\u00e9cid\u00e9 le premier, parce que l\u2019on aime vraiment beaucoup Henning, et qu\u2019Uli, que l\u2019on conna\u00eet moins, \u00e0 l\u2019air aussi tr\u00e8s sympathique.<\/p>\n

D\u00e9sireux de pouvoir mettre le visage d\u2019Al Capone sur les cartes, Phalanx a rebaptis\u00e9 le jeu Chicago Poker et nous a demand\u00e9 de resituer l\u2019action \u00e0 Chicago. Toute la documentation \u00e9tait \u00e0 refaire, les noms des chefs de gang, des clubs de jazz et des speakeasies \u00e0 changer ! Arnold Rothstein, Dutch Schultz ou Legs Diamond sont ainsi devenus Al Capone, Bugs Moran et Dion O\u2019Bannion, mais les m\u00e9canismes du jeu sont rest\u00e9s inchang\u00e9s.<\/p>\n

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L’\u00e9diteur a en outre proc\u00e9d\u00e9 \u00e0 quelques changements aparemment sans importance mais qui, selon moi, affaiblissent consid\u00e9rablement la coh\u00e9rence th\u00e9matique du jeu. La carte qui donne droit \u00e0 une action suppl\u00e9mentaire durant son tour de jeu \u00e9tait la mitraillette Thompson \u2013 la fameuse \u00ab Chicago Typewriter \u00bb. S\u2019agissant d\u2019une carte pr\u00e9sente dans le jeu en un seul exemplaire, et permettant d\u2019acc\u00e9l\u00e9rer une fusillade, cela \u00e9tait parfaitement logique. Elle est devenue un simple colt, ce qui n\u2019a gu\u00e8re de sens car cela n\u2019a plus grand chose de sp\u00e9cial, tous les gangsters ayant \u00e0 priori un colt sur eux, et ne sugg\u00e8re pas la m\u00eame id\u00e9e de rapidit\u00e9. La carte action permettant de regarder les cartes jou\u00e9es faces cach\u00e9es par un adversaire \u00e9tait, fort logiquement, l\u2019informateur. Elle est devenue, sans aucune explication logique, une descente de police – m\u00eame si j’ai trich\u00e9 et laiss\u00e9 l’intitul\u00e9 informateur dans la traduction fran\u00e7aise. Si l\u2019on avait voulu mettre une carte Descente de Police, ce qui n\u2019est pas n\u00e9cessairement une mauvaise id\u00e9e, nous lui aurions donn\u00e9 un effet ad\u00e9quat, par exemple de virer toutes les cartes jou\u00e9es par tous les joueurs devant un \u00e9tablissement. Donc, si vous voulez jouer au jeu tel que nous l’avions imagin\u00e9, essayez de vous convaincre que le dessin du colt repr\u00e9sente une mitraillette Thompson, et que la carte “Descente de Police” s’appelle Informateur. Vous verrez que tout devient alors plus coh\u00e9rent et, par cons\u00e9quent, plus amusant.
\nCe n’est pas la premi\u00e8re fois que j’ai ce genre de probl\u00e8me. Les \u00e9diteurs europ\u00e9ens semblent, contrairement aux am\u00e9ricains, avoir un peu de mal \u00e0 r\u00e9aliser que le th\u00e8me d’un jeu, ce n’est pas seulement un titre et de jolis dessins, c’est aussi et surtout un ensemble de clins d’oeil et de r\u00e9f\u00e9rences dans les noms et les effets de tous les \u00e9l\u00e9ments du jeu. C’est cela qui rend un jeu amusant.<\/p>\n

Chicago Poker<\/strong><\/span>
\n Un jeu de Bruno Faidutti & Bruno Cathala<\/span>
\nIllustr\u00e9 par Czarn\u00e8<\/span>
\n 2 \u00e0 6 joueurs \u2013 45 minutes<\/span>
\n Publi\u00e9 par Phalanx (2007)
\nLudovox<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Tric Trac<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Boardgamegeek<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was the poker craze around 2055, so Bruno and I tried, like many others, to design a game borrowing some elements of poker. However, our inspiration, like a few years ago when I designed Corruption, lies more in stud poker, specifically stud 5, than in Texas Hold’Em. I even think the latter didn’t exist yet in the prohibition era, which is the setting of Chicago Poker.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chicago Poker is a card game with some tactics and much bluffing, in which the goal is to take the control of the main businesses of the town – speakeasies, game rooms, jazz clubs and breweries – with playing cards, sometimes face up and sometimes face down, to make poker hands. Like very often this kind of game, it’s highly tactical with two players and a bit chaotic with six – but in works as well in both cases.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Chicago Poker makes use of the poker hand ranks, and the stud 5 mix of face up and face down cards, but it is more a classical german style hand management card game than a real poker variant. When playing, it feels more like Schotten Totten or Caesar and Cleopatra than like poker.<\/em><\/p>\n

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History of the game<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been playing poker for long before the recent Hold\u2019em craze, and you can feel its influence in many of my game designs. I had already used, in Corruption, a card playing system directly borrowed from stud poker. The same system is used, in a very different way, in Chicago Poker.<\/em><\/p>\n

First there was the project of a big box race game about the airmail lines between France and South America in the twenties and thirties. Despite many clever ideas, many tests, many versions, we never managed to make a convincing prototypes, may be because there were too many authors involved. Bruno and I, however, left with the feeling that there were still many things to do using poker mechanisms.<\/em><\/p>\n

So we immediately started to work on a very different idea, a smaller card game in the line of Corruption, where the setting, gang wars during the prohibition, will make feel natural the use of poker rules and hand rankings. As it often happens with good game ideas, the design was finalized in a few weeks. We placed the action in New-York, and called the game Broadway. I read some books about the local celebrities of the time, people like Arnold Rothstein, Owney Madden, Texas Guinan and found the right names to put on all the cards. We even thought we had found a publisher, Asmod\u00e9e.<\/em><\/p>\n

A few months later, Asmod\u00e9e decided to make its publishing policy cleaner and clearer, and resigned with this project, as well as with a few other ones. So we started to look for another publisher. Back from Essen 2006, I had seven prototypes of Broadway to print, paste and cut, meaning it was one the two games of ours that raised the most interest on publishers. Bruno and I are really happy that it has first been taken by Phalanx, since Henning is a true friend and Uli, which we don\u2019t know as well yet, seems to be a really nice guy as well.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since Phalanx wanted to put the face of Al Capone on the box cover, the game was renamed Chicago Poker, and the action moved to Chicago. This meant all my documentation was obsolete, and the names of all gang bosses, speakeasies, jazz clubs and the like had to be changed. Arnold Rothstein, Dutch Schultz and Legs Diamond became Al Capone, Dion O\u2019Bannion and Bugs Moran, but the game systems didn\u2019t change a bit.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The publisher also made a few changes which look cosmetic but, in the end, have a bad effect on the game’s thematic consistency. The card that gives you one extra action this turn was the sub-machine gun \u2013 the Chicago Typewriter. For a card of which there\u2019s only one in the deck, and which has the effect of accelerating a shoot-out, it was perfectly logical. Now it\u2019s a standard Colt gun, which has absolutely nothing rare or special, every gangster probably carrying one, and which doesn\u2019t suggest the same idea of acceleration. The action card that allowed you to look at an opponent\u2019s face down card was, logically, the informer. It\u2019s now, with no logical reason, called Police Raid. If we had wanted to put a Police Raid card, which may have a been a good idea, we would have found a consistent effect for it, such as discarding all gangsters played on one business. So, if you want to play the game as we had designed it, try to imagine that the picture of a colt is, in fact, a Tommy Gun, and that the “Police Raid” card is called informer. You’ll find out that everything becomes more fluent and coherent and, therefore, more fun.<\/em>
\nIt’s not the first time I have this kind of problem with a game I designed. It seems that, unlike American ones, european publishers don’t realize that a game’s theme is not only a title and nice pictures, but also, may be even more, the many allusions and links between the general story and the different elements of the game – that’s were lies most of the fun of a game.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chicago Poker<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\n A game by Bruno Faidutti and Bruno Cathala<\/em><\/span>
\nArt by Czarn\u00e8<\/em><\/span>
\n 2 to 6 players\u00a0 \u2013 45 minutes<\/em><\/span>
\n Publishe<\/em>d by<\/em> Phalanx (2007)<\/em><\/span>
\nBoardgamegeek<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Le poker \u00e9tait tr\u00e8s \u00e0 la mode au milieu des ann\u00e9es 2000, et Bruno et moi avons donc, nous aussi, imagin\u00e9 notre jeu de cartes empruntant quelques m\u00e9canismes au poker. Notre inspiration est cependant, comme il y a quelques ann\u00e9es … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[87,372],"class_list":["post-903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chicago-poker","tag-bruno-cathala","tag-chicago-poker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2HNOP-ez","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9080,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903\/revisions\/9080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faidutti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}