Ambition is a trick-taking game played with three, four, or six players. Since its inception in September 2003, Ambition has steadily grown in popularity, notably among college students in the United States.

==Basics of Ambition==

Ambition is a point-trick game where points are desirable, but the player scoring the most points in a round is penalized, earning no points to his or her total and a strike. Players failing to achieve a certain quota (11 points, in a four-player game) also strike, but retain their points. When a player "strikes out", or receives three strikes, the game ends and that player is disqualified from winning, regardless of score. The winner is the highest-scoring of the remaining players.

Ambition differs from most trick-taking games in that it makes an objective of scoring second in each round.

There is no trump suit and cards follow the standard ranking of trick games (Ace high, 2 low) with one exception: Deuces become high in the presence of a face card or Ace of the same suit in the trick.

==History==

Mike Church, a student at Carleton College, invented Ambition in September 2003. Initially named "Self-Control", the game was renamed "Ambition" during early development. The external link contains complete rules for the 4th edition (November 2003). Since then, the rules have changed only slightly:

The rule prohibiting play of royal spades and the king of clubs on the first trick, inherited from Hearts, has been eliminated.

Players can score bonuses for certain rare outcomes, in a given round. A player taking no tricks (nil) receives 28 points and does not strike in the round. A player taking more than 55 points (slam) in tricks receives 28 points without strike (instead of nothing, the standard penalty for taking too many points) , and one taking all of the points (grand slam) receives 50 points without strike.

In March 2004, Ambition was published in the Japanese puzzle magazine Nikoli.

Ambition's rules changed as it developed, especially during the fall of 2003, and hence many variations of the game exist on the internet and by word-of-mouth. Desiring to set a standard for tournament play, individuals within Ambition's player community requested of Church a set standard. In response, Church is drafting the Official Rules for the Game of Ambition. The document, effective March 23, contains the game's basic rules, suggestions for tournament organization, and some of the more interesting variants in existence.

==Hand-draft variant==

Ambition , an advanced variant of Ambition, further reduces the role of luck by allowing players to draft their hands.

The hand-draft occurs in several rounds. In each round, each player is dealt a pool of cards to choose from. Each player selects a certain number of cards from that pool and adds them to his or her hand. The other cards are set aside or shuffled back into the deck, and the process repeats until all the cards have been dealt.

A hand-draft schedule indicates the specific numbers of cards which are dealt and selected. The conventional hand-draft schedule for Ambition uses seven rounds of drafting.

==External link==

http://www.pagat.com/invented/ambition.html -- Fourth edition rule listing