Misère

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Misere or Misère (from the French word meaning "poverty") is a bid in various card games, particularly the game 500. The word is first recorded in this sense in the rules for the game "Boston" in the early 19th century.^[1]

A player who bids Misere undertakes to win no tricks at all in the round to be played. A Misere bid usually indicates an extremely poor hand, hence the name. An Open or Lay Down Misere is a 500 bid where the player is so sure of losing every trick that they undertake to do so with their cards placed face-up on the table. Consequently, 'Lay Down Misere' is Australian gambling slang for a "dead cert"; a predicted easy victory.

[edit] Misère game

A misère game is a game that is played according to its conventional rules, except that it is "played to lose"; that is, the winner is the one who loses according to the normal game rules.

In combinatorial game theory, a misère game is one played according to the "misère play condition", namely that a player unable to move wins. (This is opposed to the "normal play condition" in which a player unable to move loses.) For most games this is the same as the ordinary use of the word, but a very few games are actually misère games according to their standard rules, for example Sylver coinage.

The game of Nim is usually played using the misère play condition, as in the film Last Year in Marienbad.

Perhaps the only misère game played competitively in an organized forum is Sprouts.[1]

[edit] References

1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary