Beggar-my-neighbour

Beggar-my-neighbour

Type	Adding-up-type
Players	2
Age range	8–12
Cards	52
Deck	French
Play	Clockwise
Card rank (highest to lowest)	A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Playing time	15 min.
Random chance	Complete
Related games
Egyptian Ratscrew

Beggar-my-neighbour is a simple card game somewhat similar in nature to war, and has spawned a more complicated variant, Egyptian ratscrew.

Origins

The game was probably invented in Britain and has been known there since at least the 1860s. It appears in Charles Dickens's 1861 novel Great Expectations,^[1] as the only card game Pip, the book's protagonist, as a child seems to know how to play.

Gameplay

A standard 52-card deck is divided equally between two players, and the two stacks of cards are placed on the table face down. The first player lays down his top card face up, and the opponent plays his top card, also face up, on it, and this goes on alternately as long as no ace or face card (king, queen, or jack) appears. These cards are called "penalty cards."

If either player turns up such a card, his opponent has to pay a penalty: four cards for an ace, three for a king, two for a queen, or one for a jack. When he has done so, the player of the penalty card wins the hand, takes all the cards in the pile and places them under his pack. The game continues in the same fashion, the winner having the advantage of placing the first card. However, if the second player turns up another ace or face card in the course of paying to the original penalty card, his payment ceases and the first player must pay to this new card. This changing of penalisation can continue indefinitely. The hand is lost by the player who, in playing his penalty, turns up neither an ace nor a face card. Then, his opponent acquires all of the cards in the pile. When a single player has all of the cards in the deck in his stack, he has won.

Relation to mathematics

Unsolved problem in mathematics: Is there a non-terminating game of beggar-my-neighbour? (more unsolved problems in mathematics)

A longstanding question in combinatorial game theory asks whether there is a game of beggar-my-neighbour that goes on forever. This can happen only if the game is eventually periodic—that is, if it eventually reaches some state it has been in before. Some smaller decks of cards have infinite games, while others do not. John Conway once listed this among his anti-Hilbert problems,^[2] open questions whose pursuit should emphatically not drive the future of mathematical research. The search for a non-terminating game has resulted in "longest known games" of increasing length.^[3]

Protectionism

The term beggar-my-neighbour;; has been used to describe the mutually destructive side effects of protectionist economic policy employed by governments.^[4][5]

See also

• War (card game)
• Egyptian Ratscrew

Notes

1. ""I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me." ''Great Expectations'' Chapter 8". 19thnovels.com. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
2. Guy, Richard K.; Nowakowski, Richard J. (2008-02-24). "Unsolved Problems in Combinatorial Games" (PDF). Retrieved 2013-05-09.
3. http://www.richardpmann.com/beggar-my-neighbour-records.html
4. Hooper, John (2009-02-15). "The Group of 7 has reiterated its commitment to avoid protectionist measures despite Obama's moves to favour US steel | Business". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
5. "Obama Must Fight the Protectionist Virus – Council on Foreign Relations". Cfr.org. Retrieved 2009-10-29.

References

• Marc Paulhus (1999). "Beggar My Neighbour". The American Mathematical Monthly (Mathematical Association of America) 106 (2): 162–165. doi:10.2307/2589054. JSTOR 2589054. Available via JSTOR (subscription required).
• Morehead, Albert H.; Frey, Richard L.; Mott-Smith, Geoffrey (1991). The New Complete Hoyle Revised: The Authoritative Guide to the Official Rules of all Popular Games of Skill and Chance. London, New York, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto: Doubleday. p. 456. ISBN 0-385-40270-8.