I finally figured out how Pazaak is rigged against you...

[Kev]

It's because you have to go first every round. You are thus more likely to break 20 before your opponent, and because you will probably have to stand before they do, they get to react to whatever your number is at. I'm glad they changed it in the sequel.

I know it's a stupid minigame either way, and most players won't even have to worry much about credits by the end of the game. But maybe this will give some peace of mind to anyone who thinks that they are just terrible at Pazaak. This is one case where it's okay to be a poor sport and blame the game instead. :)

[cerberusiv]

Because of this I have always felt quite justified in a degree of save scumming when playing Pazaak. I'm pretty good at Pazaak but a bad run on the RNG can be expensive against the better opponents.

[CMB]

Pazaak is broken because a) there is possibility to auto-lose after the second turn (+10, +10 for the opponent), b) because there are situations when you can't compensate your score even in you have the biggest hand card (like you have -6 and you receive +10)/ The biggest card must be +6 otherwise there must be a posibility to plant 2 hand cards at a turn.

[Vennek]

That's true, that you're at a disadvantage by going first, which the player always does. However you can collect a pretty strong sidedeck with lots of flippable plus/minus cards, and that can help you even things out quite a bit. Also you could stuff your sidedeck with all or mostly plus/minus 6 cards, which should let you rip one victory from your oppenent by filling up your hand, which even beats a 20 count from the opponent. As far as naturals, 10+10, I rarely see that out of an opponent, or for me for that matter, but I consider that both you and your opponent have equal odds of pulling off that feat.