Games Articles

Article / Updated 06-08-2023

If you can generate extra tricks in bridge by trumping your losers in the dummy, you may think that you can generate extra tricks by trumping the dummy’s losers in your hand. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. For a moment, turn things around and think about trumping a loser in your hand — the long hand. Let’s put this theory into practice. Assume that hearts is your trump suit. You want to draw trump, so you play ♥AKQ, removing all your opponents’ trump cards. You remain with ♥J2, both of which are winners. You score five heart tricks. Agreed? Now see what happens if your opponents lead a suit that you don’t have and you trump the lead with your ♥2. You remain with the ♥AKQJ, four tricks, plus the deuce you have already used. Same five trump tricks. Trumping with the ♥2 in the long hand doesn’t give you an extra trick. But if you can manage to trump a loser in the dummy, the short hand, you still have five winning heart tricks in your hand plus the ruff (trump) in the dummy. Six trump tricks!

Article / Updated 06-06-2023

Many commercial chess-playing computer programs (chess players call them engines) are available. Most of them can beat just about anyone. One of the most powerful engines, Stockfish, is free to download. Another championship program, Komodo, offers its latest versions for sale, and its outdated versions (which are still incredibly strong) for free. Keep in mind that chess engines don't work by themselves. They're programs that need to be installed into a a graphical user interface (GUI). ChessBase offers the most popular one for sale. Arena is a free GUI. You can even download Tarrasch Chess, which comes with Stockfish already installed. The chess world is mostly Windows based, but Mac users can have their fun, too. Most engines have a number after their name. This is the version number, with the higher number being the most current version. Don't be discouraged. These programs beat nearly everyone most of the time. Nevertheless, having a program that's stronger than you are has its advantages. These programs share their evaluations with you so you can see where they think you made a mistake. They also suggest improvements in your play, which can be a very useful tool. By studying where you went wrong and considering a program's suggestions, you may learn some valuable lessons that can elevate your future play. Here's a summary of some of the most popular chess engines out there: Fritz is not the world's strongest chess engine, but it is plenty strong enough. Produced by ChessBase, the program should be well maintained for the foreseeable future. It is relatively easy to learn and fairly intuitive to use. Houdini is a state-of-the-art chess engine for Windows. Many of the world's best players have adopted it as their engine of choice. Its name was chosen for its ability to escape seemingly impossible positions. Crafty is a Windows-based chess program written by Robert Hyatt — a retired University of Alabama at Birmingham computer science professor — with continual development and assistance from Michael Byrne, Tracy Riegle, and Peter Skinner. Tord Romstad, the author of Stockfish, has described Crafty as "arguably the most important and influential chess program ever." Crafty has been available free for years on the ICC. Stockfish has been an open source engine available on various desktop and mobile platforms. It was developed by Tord Romstad, Marco Costalba, Joona Kiiski, and Gary Linscott, with many contributions from a community of open-source developers. Stockfish is consistently ranked first or near the top of most chess engine rating lists and has been the strongest open source chess engine in the world. Komodo is a Windows-based engine developed by Don Dailey and Mark Lefler, and supported by chess author, evaluation expert and grandmaster Larry Kaufman. Komodo is a commercial chess engine, but older versions (7 and older) are free for non-commercial use. For Mac: Stockfish (See above.) Shredder is a chess program by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen. It is one of the most powerful engines available to Mac users. Hiarcs is another powerful engine available on multiple platforms, including the Mac. It has been around for a number of years and can be expected to continue to well supported for a number of years to come. As for smartphone and tablet apps, Stockfish, Shredder, and Hiarcs are all available as smartphone apps as well. Chess Base is an amazing, simple-to-use, state-of-the-art resource available from both the Android Play Store and Apple App Store that can give you the frequency and winning percentages of any opening line of play. It also gives you access to millions of master games. It provides an available online computer to analyze in any of these modes.

Article / Updated 05-25-2023

Listen to the article:Download audio Rummy is a card game in which you try to improve the hand that you’re originally dealt. You can do this whenever it’s your turn to play, either by drawing cards from a pile (or stock) or by picking up the card thrown away by your opponent and then discarding a card from your hand. You can play rummy with two or more players (for six or more players, you need a second deck of cards). You'll also need a paper and pencil for scoring. This article helps you learn how to play rummy and other basics, including rules, scoring, and how to win! The objective of rummy Your aim is to put (or meld) your cards into two types of combinations: Runs: Consecutive sequences of three or more cards of the same suit Sets (or books): Three or four cards of the same rank. If you are using two decks, a set may include two identical cards of the same rank and suit. This figure shows some legitimate rummy combinations. This figure shows an unacceptable combination. This run is illegal because all cards in a run must be of the same suit. The rules for rummy — unlike the majority of other card games — state that aces can be high or low, but not both. So, runs involving the ace must take the form A-2-3 or A-K-Q but not K-A-2. The first person who manages to make their whole hand into combinations one way or another, with one card remaining to discard, wins the game. How to play rummy Follow these rummy card game rules and instructions below to understand how to play rummy from start to finish: Each player is dealt a certain number of cards from the deck. According to the rummy rules, 2 player game, or rummy for 3 players, each person gets 10 cards. That's also true for 4 players. When playing with five players, each player gets six cards. With more than five players, you must use two decks of cards and a hand of seven cards. The two-player game can also be played with seven cards each. Designate a scorer and a dealer at the start of the game. Then, the dealer deals out the hands and puts the undealt cards face-down on the center of the table as the stock, placing the top card, turned upward, beside the stock as the first card of the discard pile. The player to the left of the dealer plays first. They can either pick up the card on the discard pile or the top card from the stock. If they can put some or all of their hand into combinations, they may do so. If not, they discard one card from their hand, face-up onto the discard pile, and the turn of play moves to the next player. The next player can either pick up the last card the previous player discarded or the top card from the stock. They can then meld some or all of their cards down in combinations. The play continues clockwise around the table. When the stock runs out, shuffle the discard pile and set it up again. Other rules of rummy and tips Now that you know the objective of the game and the basic instructions to play, here is a small list of other official rules of rummy, and common tips to abide by: You cannot pick up the top discard and then throw the card back onto the pile. If you pick up two cards from the stock by accident and see either of them, you must put the bottom card back, which gives the next player an additional option. They can look at the returned card and take it if they want it. If they don't want it, they put it back into the middle of the stock and continue with their turn by taking the next card from the stock. When you pick up a card from the stock that you don’t want, don’t throw it away immediately. Put the card into your hand and then extract it. No player, regardless of skill level, needs to give gratuitous information away. Once you've mastered the game of rummy, you might want to try the slightly more interesting and challenging gin rummy. Rummying with wild cards You can play rummy with wild cards by adding jokers to the deck, or you can make the 2s or some other number wild. You can substitute the card represented by a wild card when it is your turn to play. So, if a combination including a joker, standing in for the king of clubs is put on the table, the next player can put in the king of clubs and pick up the joker for use elsewhere. If you put down two 8s and a joker, you do not have to announce which 8 the joker represents, but with a run, such as 5-6-joker, the assumption is that the joker represents the 7. When playing with wild cards, you may not want to put combinations containing wild cards down immediately; you don’t want to give another player the use of a wild card by way of the substitution. Of course, if you feel obliged to put down the set or run, try to ensure that the card your wild card replaces has already been played in some other set or run. Going out and tallying your score The first player to be able to put seven of the eight cards in their hand into combinations (including the card that they pick up in their current turn), or ten of their 11 cards, as the case may be, goes out (places all their cards on the table) and wins. You discard your remaining card as you go out, usually having made the others into one combination of four and one combination of three. You do not have to make the plays at one turn; you may have put down some cards into sets already, of course. If your last two cards are two 7s, and you pick up a third 7, most people play that you can go out by making a set, without needing a final discard. The winner collects points from all the other players. They base their point total on the remaining cards in the other players’ hands, regardless of whether the cards make up completed combinations or not — which is a good reason to put down melds as soon as you get them. The players put their cards face-up on the table and call out how many points they have left for the winner. You score the cards according to the following scale: 2s through 10s get their face value, meaning, for example, that a 5 is worth 5 points. Jacks, queens, and kings receive 10 points apiece. Wild cards cost you 15 points each, if you are playing with them. Aces, in keeping with their lowly status during the game, charge you 1 point only. For example, if you’re left holding ♠K, ♦K, ♦Q, and ♣A at the end of the game, the winner of the game scores 31 points. With more than two players, the winner cumulates the points from all the other players. Laying all your cards down in one turn is called going rummy, which doubles your score; obviously, the availability of this bonus affects your decision to put down combinations earlier rather than later. If you think that you can claim this bonus, you may want to delay putting down your combinations. The first player to score 100 points is the winner. For a longer game, you can play to 250 points. Simple rummy strategy When you first start playing rummy, you may find that putting your cards into combinations is quite challenging. The best strategy is to aim for melds that have the best chance for completion. The cards in your hand and on the table give you information about your chances for completing certain combinations. For example, if you can keep only two cards from the ♠7, ♠8, and ♣8, and you’ve already used the ♦8 in another run, you should keep the spades because you have two chances for success this way — the ♠6 or the ♠9. Keeping the two 8s gives you only one possible draw, the ♥8. Another typical problem is knowing when to break up a pair in order to increase your chances elsewhere. For example, imagine that you have to discard from a collection such as the one shown in the figure below. The solution to this problem is to throw the ♥10 away. Keeping your two pairs gives you a reasonable chance to make three of a kind, and the ♥10 gives you only a single chance of making a combination — by drawing the ♥9. In general, you don’t want to split up your pairs. But life (or at least Rummy) isn’t always so simple. Suppose that you have the cards shown in the figure below. If you need to throw out one card, throw a 4 away. The ♠7 is a useful building card, meaning that it fits well with the ♠8; mathematics says that the nest of 7s and 8s gives you four possible cards with which to make a combination (the ♠9, ♠6, ♣8, and ♥8). You have the same number of options if you throw the ♠7 away and keep the two pairs. But the real merit in throwing away one of the 4s is the degree of freedom you attain for a future discard. By throwing one 4 away, you allow yourself to pick up another potentially useful building card (such as the ♠7) at your next turn, and then you can throw away the other 4. By contrast, throwing away the ♠7 fixes your hand and gives you no flexibility. The odds favor your draw to the run rather than your hopes for a set. When you make a run, you can build on it at either end. A set, on the other hand, has only one possible draw. For this reason, be careful about which cards you discard. If you must give your opponent a useful card, try to let them have the sets of three or four of a kind instead of helping them build their runs. Keeping your eye on the discard pile You can’t go through a game of rummy thinking only about the cards in your hand — you also need to watch the cards thrown into the discard pile. Monitoring the discard pile helps you keep track of whether the cards you’re hoping to pick up have already been thrown away. For example, if you have to keep two cards from the ♠7, ♠8, and ♣8, consider whether the ♠6, ♠9, or ♥8 has already been discarded. If both spades have already gone, you have no chance of picking them up — at least not until you work your way through the entire stock, at which point you may get a second chance at the cards when the deck is reshuffled. In such a stuck position, you should settle for a realistic chance, however slim, of picking up the last 8 by discarding the ♠7. Try to avoid drawing to an inside run — keeping, for example, a 3 and a 5 in the hopes of drawing the 4. Holding onto builders (cards that may be helpful elsewhere) is better than relying on a single card. You can’t review the discard pile for clues. You have to remember which cards were thrown away — or be very adept at taking stealthy peeks at the discarded evidence! Thinking about your opponents’ hands Contemplating what your opponent has in their hand helps you make smarter choices about what cards you should discard. After all, you don’t want to throw away that ♥K if your opponent can use it to complete a run with the ♥Q and ♥J. You compile a picture of your opponent’s hand by reading the negative and positive messages you get from their plays. For example, if you see your opponent throw away the ♥Q, you can be sure that they aren’t collecting queens. That information in itself doesn’t make discarding any queen safe, however, because they may be collecting high diamonds. But if do you subsequently throw down the ♥Q, and they pick it up, their action provides you with an informative message; you can safely infer that they are collecting high diamonds.

Article / Updated 05-03-2023

Mikhail Botvinnik won seven consecutive major tournaments from 1941 to 1948, including the tournament held to determine the champion upon Alexander Alekhine's death. There's little doubt that he would have defeated Alekhine, and it seems certain that he was the best player of the 1940s. Remarkably, Botvinnik was an engineer by profession and didn't dedicate himself to chess the way most of the champions did. He lost his title to Vasily Smyslov in 1957 but won it back in the return match the next year. He then lost to Mikhail Tal in 1960 but again recaptured the title in the return match. The return match clause, stating that the champion has a right to a rematch if defeated, was stricken in 1963 when he lost to Tigran Petrosian, and no one will ever know whether he would have managed to score the hat trick. Despite a fairly tarnished record in championship match play, Botvinnik was clearly the best player in the world for many years. None of his challengers could make that claim. In 1945 a famous radio match took place between the United States and the former Soviet Union. Botvinnik, as black, was paired on the top board against Arnold Denker. The position shown here is reached after white's 22nd move. (Check out Understanding Chess Notation if you need help with reading the moves.) White is hoping to exchange queens and steer the game into an endgame, but Botvinnik has other plans. He plays 22… Rxh2+. (See part b.) The game concludes with these moves: 23. Kxh2 Rh8+ 24. Qh4 The alternatives were also grim. 24. Bh6 would have lost the queen to 24… Qxf4. Notice that the bishop would have been pinned and unable to capture black's queen. Also, the attempted move 24. Nh5 would have failed to 24… . Rxh5+ 25. Kg3 Rxg5+, when it would have been the white queen's turn to be pinned. 24. … Rxh4+ 25. Bxh4 Qf4 0-1 The queen is now attacking both of white's bishops. Because white can only save one of them, Denker resigns.

Article / Updated 04-25-2023

The availability of enchantments in Minecraft ranges from low to high and requires Experience points and bookshelves. To reach the highest levels of enchantment, 15 bookshelves need to surround your enchantment table. (However, the bookshelves don’t have to be connected.) To achieve a lower enchantment, you should place a block, such as a piece of carpet or a torch, between the enchantment table and a bookcase. Unfortunately, you don’t fully control which enchantment is available. Steps for enchanting a tool or armor After constructing an enchantment table, here’s how to enchant a tool or armor: Open up your enchanting screen by right-clicking the enchantment table. The enchanting screen will show, with a place where you can place items, and three buttons. Select the tool or armor or other item (like a book) to be enchanted. Hoes, shears, and horse armor cannot be enchanted on a table. Power the enchantment table with lapis lazuli. In the latest version of Minecraft, in order to enchant things, your enchantment table must be powered with lapis lazuli. You do so by placing lapis lazuli in the second block on the enchantment table. Place the same number of lapis lazuli as you have numbers on the right. Then you’re given three options, displaying only the Experience points required for the spell, and, by moving your mouse over the option, one of the enchantments that you are guaranteed to get, with a one, two, or three as your price. You aren’t given any indication if you will gain any other enchantments for the item you are enchanting however. Choose one of the three options randomly. The options are labeled using a special language (with characters called “runes”) but even when ciphered, the combination of runes doesn’t disclose the enchantment. The higher the level option, the higher level enchantment you will receive. To know what the item was enchanted with, mouse over the item in your inventory and the enchantment will appear under the item name. To get around the problem of not knowing what an item will be enchanted with, many players choose to enchant a book, revealing the enchantment, and then use the book on an anvil to apply a specific enchantment to the desired item. (For a list of enchantments, see the table below.) The one, two, and three are your cost. Choosing one means you will have to pay one experience point and one lapis lazuli. Paying three means you will have to pay three experience points and three lapis lazuli. List of enchantments Enchantment Effect Item Protection Reduces damage Armor Fire protection Reduces fire damage Armor Feather falling Reduces fall damage Boots Blast protection Reduces explosion damage Armor Thorns Damages attacker Armor (helmet, boots, leggings only on anvil) Projectile protection Reduces projectile damage Armor Aqua infinity Increases underwater mining speed Helmet Respiration Increases underwater breathing Helmet Depth strider Increases underwater movement Boots Looting Increases mob drops Sword Knockback Increases the range that a mob is thrown when hit Sword Fire aspect Sets items on fire Sword Bane of anthropods Increase damage to spiders, silverfish, and endermites Sword and ax (ax only on anvil) Sharpness Increases damage Sword and ax (ax only on anvil) Smite Increases damage to skeletons, zombies, and withers Sword and ax (ax only on anvil) Fortune Increases block drops Sword, shovel, ax Silk touch Mined blocks drop themselves Pickaxe, shovel, ax, and shears (shears on anvil) Efficiency Increases mining speed Pickaxe, shovel, ax, and shears (shears on anvil) Lure Increases rate of fish biting Fishing pole Luck of the sea Decreases odds of junk when fishing Fishing pole Infinity Shooting uses up no arrows Bow Punch Increases knockback Bow Flame Sets arrows on fire Bow Power Increases damage Bow Unbreaking Increases durability Armor, sword, bow, fishing pole, axe, shovel, and pickaxe; using an anvil —shears, flint and steel, carrot on a stick, and hoe How to craft an anvil in Minecraft An anvil is useful in Minecraft to repair items without breaking the enchantment. An anvil can also combine enchantments and rename items. An anvil is more complicated than a crafting table, and it requires experience points (earned by completing tasks in the game, and by killing mobs) and materials in order to repair an item. Like many of the items an anvil repairs — including tools, weapons, and armor — an anvil becomes damaged with use and lasts, on average, for only 24 uses. After you craft an anvil, it opens its own menu when you right-click it. To repair or enchant an item, follow these steps: Place the item in the first slot. Place the sacrifice piece in the second slot. For enchantments, you place the enchantment book in the second slot. For other items, you place an ingredient (such as iron ingot to repair an iron sword) in the second slot. The game calculates the cost of the repair and determines whether you have enough experience points (seen as the bottom bar below the hearts) to complete the repair. (This statement does not apply to Creative mode.) Repairing on an anvil is generally only desirable to preserve enchantments. You can drop an anvil and inflict considerable damage on mobs and players (the anvil will not be damaged). An anvil is one of the more expensive items to craft, because it requires more iron than a complete set of iron armor. To craft an anvil, place three blocks of iron on the top horizontal row, three iron ingots on the bottom horizontal row, and 1 iron ingot in the middle square. Then you have a total of 31 iron ingots (blocks are composed of nine iron ingots apiece).

Article / Updated 12-21-2022

Before you can play a game of chess, you need to know how to move the pieces (legally). A chess piece’s power is tied to its mobility. The more mobile a piece is, the more powerful it is. Here's how the various pieces can move: Pawns: Pawns can only move forward. On their first move, they can move one or two squares. Afterwards, they can move only one square at a time. They can capture an enemy piece by moving one square forward diagonally. They can only move diagonally when capturing an enemy piece. Bishops: Bishops can move any number of squares diagonally. Knights: Knights can move only in an L-shape, one square up and two over, or two squares over and one down, or any such combination of one-two or two-one movements in any direction. Rooks: Rooks can move any number of squares, up and down and side to side. Queens: Queens can move any number of squares along ranks, files and diagonals. Kings: Kings can move one square at a time in any direction.

Article / Updated 12-14-2022

The card game Accordion is also known as Methuselah, Tower of Babel, or Idle Year (presumably because of the amount of time you need to keep playing the game to win it). Accordion is a charmingly straightforward game that can easily seduce you into assuming that it must be easy to solve. Be warned — we've never known anyone who has completed a game of Accordion! This challenge makes success at the game doubly pleasurable. Accordion also takes up very little space — a major benefit because you tend to play Solitaire in a cramped space, such as while waiting in a bus station or an airport gate. The objective of Accordion is to finish up with a single pile of 52 cards. Relative success is reducing the number of piles to four or fewer. Your chances of complete victory may be less than 1 in 1,000, but don't let that deter you from giving this game a try! The fact that it is a very fast game to play means that you can abandon unpromising hands and move on to another without wasting much time. Looking at the layout The layout for Accordion is simple. Follow these steps to begin your long journey: Shuffle the deck well, and then turn over the top card in your deck and put it to your left to start your layout. Turn over the next card. If the card is either the same suit (both clubs, for example) or the same rank (both jacks) as the first card, put the second card on top of the first. If you don't have a match, use the card to start a new pile. Turn over the third card and compare it to the second card. Again, if the suits or ranks of the cards match, put the third card on top of the second card; if not, start a third pile with the third card. You can't match the third card with the first card. However, when matching cards (of suit or rank) are three cards apart, you can combine them as if the cards were adjacent. In other words, you can build the fourth card on the first one. Continue by going through every card in the deck in this way. The game ends after you turn over the last card. To win, you must assemble all the cards into one pile. Shuffling the deck well is important because you work your way through the deck one card at a time, so you don't want to make the game too easy by having all the diamonds coming together, for example. That would spoil your sense of achievement, wouldn't it? Your initial cards may look like one of the examples shown here after you lay out three cards. In the first example, you must create three different piles because the cards are unrelated in rank or suit. In the middle example, you can put the 4 of diamonds on top of the queen of diamonds (because they share the same suit), leaving you with only two piles. In the last example, you can put the 7 of diamonds on top of the queen of diamonds, which allows you to combine the two 7s, resulting in a single pile. To see how you can combine cards placed three piles away from each other, look here. After you turn up the queen of clubs, you can place it on the queen of diamonds (because they're three apart and match in rank) and then put the king of clubs on the queen of clubs (same suit). The jack of hearts then moves to the first row. Laying the cards out in lines of three helps ensure that you properly identify the cards that are three piles apart. Choosing between moves When moving the cards, you frequently have to be careful to make the plays in the correct order to set up more plays. You may have a choice of moves, but you may not be sure which move to execute first. Look at a possible scenario shown here. After you turn up the 4 of hearts, you can place it on the 9 of hearts, which opens up a series of moves that you can play. The best option is to move the 4 of hearts onto the 4 of spades and then move the rest of the cards into their new spaces. Because the king of spades is three cards away from the king of clubs, you can combine the two cards and then move the 4 of hearts onto the jack of hearts. Now the 9 of diamondsis three cards away from the queen of diamonds, so you can combine those two cards. If you move the 4 of hearts before you move the king of clubs, you miss out on two possible moves. Making an available play isn't always mandatory. When you can choose between possible moves, play a couple more cards to help you decide which move is superior. The figure shows you how waiting can help you make up your mind when you have a choice. At this point, you may not know whether to put the ace of spades on the ace of clubs or on the king of spades because your piles don't indicate whether you should keep aces or kings on top of your piles. If several piles have kings on the top, you may want to avoid hiding the king of spades. Instead of jumping the gun, you turn over another card to see what happens, which turns out to be the jack of spades. Now you can see daylight: Put the jack of spades on the ace of spades and then on the king of spades, and then you put the jack of spades on the jack of hearts. Now you can combine the 9s. Next, put the 4 of spades on the jack of spades, allowing the ace of clubs to go on the king of clubs and the 9 of diamonds to go on the queen of diamonds. Put the 4 of spades on the 7 of spades to move down to three piles. Wasn't that fun? Getting a series of moves to come together like that makes up for the hundreds of unexciting plays you go through. Play continues until you end up with one pile of cards — good luck!

Cheat Sheet / Updated 12-07-2022

People have been betting on horse races since horses have been running. Betting on the outcome of formal horse races can be fun and profitable if you know what you’re doing and can beat the odds. This handy Cheat Sheet has advice on what to pay attention to and what tools can help you at the track, as well as the mechanics of placing a bet, the types of bets you can place, and your odds of winning.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 10-20-2022

To master Minecraft, you must gather resources in the three major areas of the game: the Overland, the mines, and the Nether. Being prepared with these resources allows you to survive, build, create, and advance through the game.

Article / Updated 10-18-2022

Minecraft is a virtual open world video game where players can dig, mine, build, craft, and enchant things. The game is typically described as a “sandbox game” because players can create their own worlds and experiences where the possibilities are truly limitless. Unlike normal video games, Minecraft allows you to be in control of the game, and it even has options allowing players to act as moderators and build their own coding/modding directly into the game! Getting started Getting started with Minecraft is super easy. First, you need to purchase and install the game. After installation is complete, simply start the game by running the launcher you downloaded from the Minecraft homepage, which also gives you the option to play from your browser. Now it’s time to log in, navigate the main menu, and select your game type. See our guide for beginners below. Logging in and the main menu The launcher opens the News screen, which displays game updates and links. Enter your username and password in the lower right corner and click Log In to continue to the main menu. This list describes what you can do after you click the buttons on the main menu: SinglePlayer: Start or continue a basic game. The remaining portion of this article covers the options for starting a game in SinglePlayer mode. MultiPlayer: Join other players online. Languages: Change the language of the text in Minecraft. Use the tiny button, just left of the Options button, showing a speech bubble containing a globe. Options: Manage game options such as sound, graphics, mouse controls, difficulty levels, and general settings. Quit Game: Close the window, unless you’re in In-Browser mode. Starting your first game in SinglePlayer mode To start your first game in SinglePlayer mode, follow these steps: Click the SinglePlayer button to view a list of all worlds. If you’re just starting out in Minecraft, this list should be empty. Click the Create New World button to start a new game. The Create New World page appears. In the World Name text box, type whatever name you want and click the Create New World button at the bottom of the screen. To turn on cheats, click the More World Options button, and then click the Allow Cheats button to turn cheats on or off. Turning on game cheats increases or decreases the level of difficulty as you play and switches between Creative mode and Adventure mode. Cheats give you more control over the world when you’re just getting started. When you finish creating your world, the game automatically starts by generating the world and placing your avatar (character) in it. Selecting the right game mode in Minecraft Minecraft offers several different game modes that allow you to experience the open world in a unique way. The following types of Minecraft game modes are available: Survival — after randomly being spawned in a new world, players have to try to survive by gathering material, building shelter, gaining experience, and fighting off hostile mobs. Creative — a game mode where players have immediate access to almost all blocks and items, are invulnerable and immune to death, and have the ability to fly. The purpose of this game mode is to create/design unique worlds. Adventure — players interact with objects (levers, buttons) and mobs to complete an adventure. Spectator — invisible to everything and cannot interact with blocks, entities, or your inventory. This mode is typically used to observe other players' created worlds. Hardcore — similar to survival mode, Hardcore is set to the “hard” difficulty level permanently and players cannot respawn; once you die, the map is deleted (or you permanently become a spectator). Your first day in Minecraft When selecting SinglePlayer and Survival mode in Minecraft, your first day can be very exciting but also very stressful. You are immediately thrown into a world with little resources and have to prepare yourself to ensure you survive your first night, when hostile mobs are more likely to attack you. Typically, your first day in Minecraft involves things like collecting resources, punching woods, killing animals, building or finding shelter, gathering food, etc. Now that you know how to play Minecraft, enjoy building and exploring the limitless virtual worlds available to you!