Spades is a card game in one of its simplest forms, with just a bit of a twist. The dealer deals 13 cards to each person. The game goes in clockwise order, and whoever is after the dealer goes first. Someone plays a card, and everyone else plays that same suit. The highest valued card wins. If you don’t have the suit that was played, you may cut it with a spade, or give up the book with any card from another book. In this sense, the overall highest valued card is the Ace of Spades because spades are wild. In this game, people can cheat a lot. One of the main ways to cheat is by playing a different suit than the one that is out on the table, but in reality, you do have that suit in your hand. This is commonly know as the “re-nig,” so if someone catches you lying, then they take all of your tricks away from you. You win the game by obtaining the most tricks. The tricks are also a way of tracking who is winning as the game progresses. This game uses dealing, which is random. There is also a lot of skill and strategy involved in this game, such as: card-counting, memorization, math skills, etc. I think this game would be great for you after-school classroom because it is extremely fun and interactive. It also is very strategic so your students will be using their brain all the time. Also four people can play at once!
Chess is a very old royal game. This game was made for royal families back in the castle days. I guess, to glorify their highness. The game consists of 6 different pieces: the pawn, rook, knight, bishop, king, and queen. The pawn is a very strong piece. Although it can only move one space forward, attack forwards diagonally, and move twice forward on the pawn’s first move. The pawn is the only catch up mechanism in the game, because if you get one of your pawns to the opposite side of the board, you then receive any dead piece back that you want. The rook moves and attacks horizontal and vertical. The knight moves and attacks two spaces in any direction then one space in any direction. The bishop moves diagonally in any direction. The queen, which is the strongest piece, can move and attack in any direction. The king moves similar to the queen, but only one space in any direction. You win the game by putting the opponent’s king in check whereas one of your piece is attacking the king, and then the king cannot move in any direction because he is being attacked from every angle. Also, it is not checkmate if you can block off the attack. You can keep record of who’s winning by looking at who has more pieces of importance ` This game is in no way, shape, or form random. The mind is very important when playing this game. Pure strategy! This game is a GREAT language barrier breaker. Unlike Spades, people of different heritage and language can play together and not have any problems. A problem with Chess may be that Chess can only be 2 people, and you need to occupy more than 2 people, but it’s still a great choice!