Got Game?

To cheer up a friend, I invented a game called Amazon.com Review Poker. It worked so well that he asked me to blog about it, so if you're interested in a completely corrupt and thoroughly enjoyable game, here's how you play:

Two player game: each player goes to their or another author's book sale page at Amazon.com with at least 26 or more reviews. The reviews are the cards. Print them out, cut them up into slips, shuffle them, and place them face-down on your desk. The other player does the same with his reviews. Draw five reviews and start to play.

To determine the suit of each card:

1 star = Clubs
2 stars = Spades
3 stars = Diamonds
4 stars = Hearts
5 stars (or if you want a fast game, any review by Harriet Klausner) = Wildcard

To determine the rank number of your card, count the number of misspelled words in the review. If there are no misspelled words, then the review is a royal, as follows:

Jack = review 1 paragraph in length, or with no paragraph breaks
Queen = 2 paragraphs in length
King = 3 paragraphs in length
Ace = 4 or more paragraphs in length

The hands are the same as classic poker:

Straight flush (five cards of the same suit and sequence, Ace low or high)
Fours (four cards of the same rank, as J-J-J-J-2)
Full house (three of one rank and two of another, as K-K-K-6-6)
Flush (five cards of the same suit but not in sequence, as Q-10-7-5-2)
Straight (five cards in sequence but not of the same suit, as 9-8-7-6-5)
Three of a kind (three of the same rank plus two of two different ranks, as 4-4-4-3-9)
Two pair (as K-K-5-5-10)
One pair (as 2-2-J-4-9)

We play via e-mail, but you can do this in person, and with a larger group of players, too (in which case, put all the cards together to make a full deck as in traditional poker.) To make it fun (and keep it fair), you should not read the reviews or figure out in advance the rank/suit of your cards. As for stakes, I suggest page wagers (number of manuscript or galley pages to be proof-read by the loser.)