Ambition

Ambition is a trick taking standard deck playing card game. It was invented by Indie designer Mike Church whose stated goal was to create a trick game where the role of chance ("hand-luck") was as small as possible. The usual object is to avoid taking the most points in a round and, secondarily, to score as many as possible up to that. (That is, if the 120 points split 42-34-25-19, it's best to be the '34' and worst to be the '42'.) Bonuses, known as Nil and Slam, are given respectively for taking no points or for taking 75+. Thus, almost any hand dealt has some strategy: few terrible hands exist. Ambition is as much a game of players, and the interactions of their varying strategic objectives, as of cards. For improvement's sake, the inventor has updated the game several times since its first publication in November 2003. The most recent rules were published in July 2012.