Card Games: Showdown Games
Each player has a hand of cards. There is a showdown in which these hands are exposed and compared to see which is the best, according to some criteria. Sometimes players have an opportunity to improve their hands by discarding and drawing new cards before the comparison, but apart from this there is no actual card play. For this reason David Parlett calls these Null Games.
Some further games that end with a showdown will be found classified in the following groups:
- Partition games
- Players divide their cards into two or more smaller hands, each of which is then compared in turn.
- Vying games
- Before the showdown players can propose to increase the stake, and those who do not want to play for the higher stake can drop out.
- Banking games
- At the showdown each player's hand is compared with the banker's hand (rather than the players' hands being compared with each other).
The Swedish game Chicago includes two showdowns between the players before the final trick-taking phase.