A**hole Taiti

Today, during FAC training, the team played a**hole taiti. Since there were five of us, ordinary taiti would not be feasable, since two players would end up with one extra card each. In order to liven up things, we decided to play a**hole taiti. These are the new rules that are added to ordinary taiti:

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Five different roles -- King, Queen, Commoner, Courtesan, A**hole.

At the start of the game, each person chooses one role. Before each round, the courtesan gives the best card that he has to the queen, while the queen gives his worst card to the courtesan. The king gives his 2 worst cards to the a**hole, while the a**hole gives his 2 best cards to the king. After all the trades, the a**hole takes the last two remaining cards on the table. After one player finishes his cards, the next player sets down his card, and play goes on until one player is left. Each player takes his new role according to whoever finishes first.
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When you look at the rules, it seems to be a case of the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. It is very likely that the commoner, courtesan and a**hole will be trapped in their places and never become king or queen. This is because the king and queen will siphon away their best cards and leave them with their worst cards.

However, this is not so when the game is actually played. Your position in the game does not have any pattern whatsoever. Often, a player who starts out at the bottom will eventually rise up the ranks and become king, provided that many games are played. Of course, the king still holds the advantage, and according to the rules of probability, the king is most likely to remain as king for the next round. However, there is always one round in which the king receives cards that are so difficult to play that he ends up giving up his position. My friend, Fate, even dropped from king to a**hole in a single round! On the other hand, Icyfate once got a quadruple promotion from a**hole to queen!

So what am I saying here? Once again, I am talking about the FAC. Yeah yeah, I can hear all of you "falling over anime-style" as you read, but never mind, for I am a trained First Aider. Anyway, what I am saying is that no wonder how skilled you are, nothing is for sure. If you compare our team to our opponents, on paper, we would beat them hook, line and sinker. However, that is not for sure. Of course, I am not saying that we will definitely lose, but what I am implying is that no matter how good we are, we still have to keep training hard. Yes, the current team is definitely better than last year's team, but either way, we still have to train. No matter how good we are, there is no such thing as a perfect team, although we will continuously strive to be the best that we can be.

So right now, the competition is just around the corner. However, we still have to proceed with training that is more vigorous than usual. So all of you who are reading this, please keep us in your prayers. Pray for Icyfate, Fieryfate, Fate and JL.

FYI, I ended the last round as king, after starting the round as commoner.

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Competition countdown: 9 days