User:Master lan/Mao (card game)

Mao is a card game of the Shedding family, in which the aim is to get rid of all of the cards in hand without breaking certain unspoken rules. The game is from a subset of the Stops family, and is often times similar in structure to the card game Uno or Crazy Eights.

The game forbids its players from explaining the rules, and new players are often told only "the only rule you may be told is this one." The ultimate goal of the game is to be the first player to get rid of all the cards in their hand. Specifics are discovered through trial and error. A player who breaks a rule is penalized by being given an additional card from the deck. The person giving the penalty must state what the incorrect action was, without explaining the rule that was broken.

There are many variants of Mao in existence. While beginners sometimes assume that the dealer (sometimes called the "Chairman" or the "Mao") and other experienced players are simply making up possibly inconsistent rules (as in the game Mornington Crescent), the rules of Mao are consistent within each game and can be followed correctly.

History
Mao is most likely descended from the German game Mau Mau, or from Eleusis, which was published in Martin Gardner's column in the Scientific American in June 1959. Both of these games share similar principles of inductive reasoning.

Other inductive games in which not all players know the rules include Penultima and Zendo; however, the secret rules in those games are made up at the start of play and disclosed at the end of each round, and the scope and subject matter of Eleusis, Penultima or Zendo rules may be more explicit and closely circumscribed.

An Arthur Machen short story written in 1899 called The White People contains what may be the earliest reference to a game called "Mao".

Rules of Mao
Part of the traditional experience of Mao is a new player being forced to learn some or all of the rules of the game through observation and trial and error. Thus new players are not usually presented with a list of rules, as part of the game is to discover the rules through gameplay. Mao rules can vary widely between different groups with no individual set of rules being canonical.

Public Rules
The exact set of rules divulged to new players varies between groups of players: some groups will say only "the only rule I can tell you is this one", others will reveal the goal of eliminating cards, and some might outline the basic rules and, in most cases, no rules are revealed at all. However much information is revealed, the players will explain that they are "not allowed" to reveal any more, and that the new player must deduce the full rules during play.

Rules of play
Each player is dealt an initial hand the same number of cards; the exact number of cards dealt varies, but is generally either five  or seven. The size of the deck also varies; it is good to have approximately one 52-card deck for every two or three players (or, in games with new players, one deck for every player), but missing or extra cards are not terribly important to gameplay, in some varients a single deck is always used. Two or more combined decks is common; matching card backs is not important. Once the cards are dealt, the remaining cards are placed face down in a stack in the middle of the table, and the top card from the stack is turned over and placed next to it. In some variants, play commences with the player to the left of the dealer and proceeds clockwise; in others, the dealer chooses who begins and which direction it proceeds. Many variants penalize players for touching their hands, or looking at their hands before the game begins or before the dealer looks at his or her hand.