Talk:Mia (game)

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Clarification on rules[edit]

"Each player must announce a value greater than the previous value announced or pass and take responsibility for the current value." - I'm confused by this. Does this mean that the second player to roll the dice must announce a higher number than the first player did, regardless of what he rolled? And the third player has to announce a higher number than the second and so on? If so what does the second half of this line mean - that a player can pass when it's his turn to roll?

I'm also confused, not by the article, but by the strategy of the game. A player that passes can never lose a life. And a die roller that always announces a total less than his actual roll can never lose a life. There's no actual profit in challenging or bluffing another player, so wouldn't the smart thing to do be to always announce honest totals when it's your turn to roll, pass every other turn, and never take any risks? Boring play but risk-free. Let the other players knock each other out of the game.

I assume that somehow these two rules mesh together and create situations where a player is forced to take risks. But can someone clarify how this happens? MK 06:29, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Suppose four players A, B, C, and D. A rolls and announces 52. This is fairly easy to beat so without looking B shakes the box. When she looks inside, she sees 43 so she is forced to bluff. She announces 65 and passes to C. C isn't sure about the call but 65 is hard to beat so he passes to D. D reasons the same as C and passes to A. A also does not think he can beat 65 and B looks pretty confident so he passes it on so B must beat her own score. But B is the only person who actually knows what is in the box and challenges A. A loses a life.

The reason just passing off is not risk-free is because you take responsibility for the call. →Vik Reykja 1 July 2005 03:29 (UTC)

You cleared up the (completely separate) confusion on the rules I had. The article does not explicitly state that when attempting to roll "something better" they also can bluff on the roll. The article should probably state that the claimed value of the dice must be higher and that every roll of the dice takes place in the container. MrHen

The current rules fail to clarify the case when all players pass. http://www.lore-and-saga.co.uk/html/dice.html indicates that the original announcer of a roll must not pass, but announce a higher score, optionally rolling the dice.

Strategy[edit]

Since this game involves bluffing, and thus is a game of strategy, it would be helpful to know something about the relative strength of rolls. This isn't as obvious as it may first appear, since there are two ways to make all the mixed rolls (6-5 and 5-6 both amount to a result of 65) but only one way to make each of the pairs. What this means is that, while it may appear that 61 or 62 are decent, "middling" rolls (since they land in the middle of the list of possible results, they are actually quite strong--54 (a roll of 5-4 or 4-5) is in fact the "middle" result, the one which makes it roughly an even proposition that the next person in line will either beat the roll or be beaten by it. Anyway, something like this is what I'm talking about... --Buck 07:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay ... I decided to add a small section to the page myself, dealing with the above concern. --Buck 08:39, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merge with Kuriki[edit]

The article for Kuriki details a rule set nearly the same. The only differences are one distinction on equipment and that non-doubled dice are tallied instead of adding ten to the highest of the two dice rolled.

I believe it would be more beneficial to merge the articles and place one or the other under a variations section and suggest using this article as the final article. MrHen 04:39, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think they should be merged.

I agree, no merge. The difference in rules is strategically quite significant. Furthermore, as neither of the articles provide references to source material, there is no way of telling if the games truly are related or not.

Unless Kuriki is to be deleted entirely, I think it should be merged into Mia, with a redirect here.--Niels Ø (noe) 20:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remove/move the 'Other' section[edit]

Disambiguation of the word is done on it's own page Mia. Furthermore the described uses of the word doesn't seem to be in any relation to the game.

Meyer[edit]

In Denmark, the game is called "Meyer", which is a farily common last name (family name), sounding very much like an English pronunciation of "Mia" or "Maya" (where as a Dane would pronounce "mia" as "me-ah").

The sequence of the throws is

Meyer (21)
little Meyer (31)
pair six (66)
pair five (55)
...
pair one (11)
65
64
...
32

Note the order of the pairs here. 31 is called "lille Meyer" (little Mia) and relocated in the sequence as the second best throw.

Lying to state a lower value than you actually have is pointless. If you choose to believe the previous player, you have to throw at least the same (i.e. not necessarily more). Passing the throw on to the next player is only an option when Meyer is declared - by passing you only lose 1 point. The player announcing Meyer keeps the responsibility for the roll. If a player further down the line exposes it as a lie, he will lose two points. You also have another possibility. After looking at your own throw, you can roll the dices again and without looking you can say "At least the same!", and then pass it on to the next player. You can also add to the value. For example, if a player announces 54. You roll a lesser value. Instead of lying you could say for instance "62 or above".

Players usually start with 6 lives, indicated by a die showing the side 6 in front of each player.

Reference: http://www.spillemagasinet.dk/spilleregler/meyer/ --Niels Ø (noe) 20:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC) (modified Niels Ø (noe) 22:23, 3 December 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Age of the game[edit]

The article states that Mia is a very old dice game. The sole reference or external link in the article is to a page that obviously isn't a relaible source. I think we should refrain from making statements about the age, unless other sources can be found.--Niels Ø (noe) 21:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merge with Kuriki, cont'd[edit]

As the Kuriki article is up for deletion, I saved the only really crucial piece of info from that page (see Scoring, Variants). Then I removed the Merge template. I'll return later to see if I can find a Kuriki reference. Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 13:26, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Origins[edit]

This is a game that clearly has earlier origins, there needs to be references added to keep this page in the long-term as I expect that the variation of rules is marginal. While I have not yet found this game consider Liar's Dice.Tetron76 (talk) 11:38, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The game is an interesting phenomenon, apparently known in many places, but poorly documented. I've known the Danish game Mejer (a surname, sounding VERY much like English "Mia", with nearly identical rules) for 30 years, and had no idea it also existed in other countries till I came across this article. I'd be sad to see this article go - and thrilled to see it fleshed out with good references and a credible history of the game!--Nø (talk) 12:22, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense, I seem to remember a passing conversation from 98 where someone asking about Perudo asked is it just "Maya" and the answer was "no". Which is etymologically much closer. I am sure that there is a big gap in wikipedia's dice games and I wasn't suggesting deleting or merging this game until the correct name / game was found. As I suspect that even this is a renaming needed when the original game is found. There is the Mexico (game) for example.

The only game book that covers dice games I has pretty much what is on wikipedia with a couple more yacht (dice game) variants. I think historically in English the games have become blurred but I am sure that there are sources that cover this and like card games has a strong oral tradition so games are often taught with the wrong names / rules.Tetron76 (talk) 17:58, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I played this game as a child in Germany, also about 30 years ago. I believe it is one of the most popular dice games in Germany, or at least was at the time. It is known under two German names: Meier[n] and Mäxchen/Mäxle. Meier is a common German surname pronounced like Mia/Maya and refers to the combination 1+2. Meiern is the verb formed from it, as in playing the Meier game. Mäxchen and Mäxle are two diminutives of the first name Max. (Which of the diminutives is more common depends on the region in Germany.) They also refer to the combination 1+2. 'Mäxchen sounds not unlike Mexican, or rather "Mexichan".

As there is no semantic connection between Max and Meier, no reason for the diminutive, and both would not normally occur to a German speaker as sufficiently distinctive to use them as a name for a game, it appears slightly more likely to me that Maya/Mexican are the earlier names and that the German games are derived from them, than the other way round. Hans Adler 13:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, for the quick response, I had an edit conflict postng below. It certinaly appears to have better recognition in Germany.

Tetron76 (talk) 13:06, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) As the rules are described here, something absolutely essential is missing, although it more or less follows from the rules: When you pass on the dice, they might be upset and we have to deal with that. The player who shook the dice and looked at them may, when passing them on, shake them again, but may not look at them again. Even better, the player may flip his finger against the card board on which the dice rest in the attempt to get one of them to a new position in a controlled way. With some practice it is often possible to get a significant improvement that way. Of course the player is not allowed to look at the dice again after this maneuver. This is the part that rally makes the game fun. Hans Adler 13:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in Germany the ranking is from 6-6 down to 1-1, not the other way round as described here. There are also further names, including 21. Based on my experience with card game naming, 21 is a good candidate for the game's original name. At some point, a group of players must have decided to make 21 higher, rather than 6-6, the highest result so that the highest result occurs more often and is easier to produce with a flipping maneuver. At that point the game would likely have been called 21. Hans Adler 13:24, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't yet tried to improve the article, I suspect that the German rules are probably what is in the majority of the sources. The name 21, however, is unlikely to have been the primary name because of this game [1], I have a book that has the game in too from the 1980'sTetron76 (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing like this game is described in 1937 Foster's Complete Hoyle (New York), which has some dice games but nothing as sophisticated as this, nothing with bluffing, and nothing with a similar ranking system. The same holds for the 1888 Grande Encyclopédie des Jeux (Paris). The 1882 Illustrirtes Allgemeines Familienspielbuch (Leipzig/Berlin) is slightly stronger on dice games but also doesn't have anything that looks related. Unfortunately the 1877 Manuel de juegos (Mexico/Paris) has only very few games so it doesn't suggest anything either way. Hans Adler 14:02, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't find it in a book either but I only found one reasonable source on the history of dice that has about 8 significant dice games that aren't on wikipedia. In August I am at an event where David Parlett will be and he might be able to help with sources. While, I think that the BGG age of 600 A.D. is unfounded, I would be surprised if the game isn't over 150 years old.Tetron76 (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what to think. If it had been popular in Germany or France 150 years ago, I am pretty sure it would have been in one of the old anthologies that I have in digitised form. It appears that in Spain the censorship didn't allow even books about card games. Do you have Reiner Knizia's book? In any case I would be very interested in what David Parlett has to say about dice games, although my educated guess would be: Much harder to research even than card games, and nothing much is known for a period of several hundred years between the last medieval descriptions of dice games and the first modern ones. Hans Adler 17:33, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the long analysis but the most striking thing about my online searches is the lack of information about any bluffing dice game. It is not simply the origin of this game (Mia) that cannot be definitively identified but all three existing bluffing games.

While it certainly doesn't appear that there are written sources in English to establish the history of this game (Mia), I think that there are some reasonable assumptions that can be drawn from the evidence.

There are 3 key dice games that involve the act of bluffing:

Currently called: Mia, Liar's dice (poker dice), Dudo

It is not impossible that all of these games are very recent creations due to lack of mention in English. But I think that it is a reasonable assumption that there has been a dice game that uses the mechanism of concealing a throw from the other players much earlier than this.

It would also seem the four places that such a game are ilkely to have developed and found there way into Europe are:

The Mediterranean
Northern Europe
Central America / south America
China

It is quite possible that all of these locations have independently developed this mechanism or just one of them. Any one of these locations would allow the mechanism to become known in Europe at least 400 years ago. This then raises the possibility that an evolution of the bluff dice happened.

However, one of the earliest references using the term Liar's dice appears to be a book 1st published in 1969 Board and table games from many civilisations unfortunately the 2 pages describing the game are unavailable on line. But in the index it is accredited to speaking to Miss L. A. Ogbourn from Oxford University. All the other dice games are and it is also in special dice section so it would be reasonable to think that this means poker dice. This game could have been an invention. If the hiding did exist before this it is possible to build a more gradual evolution from games such as Indian dice and yacht.

Looking at Dudo it is difficult to see a direct to poker dice. The game is not really similar to a card game. It is much more likely that the game originated without using standard dice. It is much more likely that this game is linked to older games such as "bowl and coins"

While the source of its age is currently taken from a marketing theme put on the game Perudo, I think that the rules of the game would be consistent with the dice games played in that area.

The last game to consider is Mia. The kiriki page on Spanish wikipedia gives a game being played with poker dice. This could suggest a direct connection between this game and Liar's poker dice. However, the order of the rankings doesn't really support this. While there is no documented pure dice game there is an older backgammon variant that treats 2-1 as a special throw as well as the doubles: Acey-deucey apparently adopted by the US navy from a variant found in the mediterranean. While it is impossible to know the connection between the two, it would support the hypothesis that the game rules can go back 200+ years If the rules do indeed go back this far then it cannot be a game derived from Liar's poker dice.

The modern distribution of the game doesn't fit with this location of the game and it is probable that the 2-1 throw comes from elsewhere.

The final piece of evidence though is the name of the game and I think that this is what in combination with the rules that supports a much earlier age:

Phonetically / etymologically there are 4 name groups to consider for Mia:

Maya - Mia - Meier etc
Mexican - Maxchen
Quinito - kinito
Kuriki - kiriki

The link in English between Maya and Mexican is fairly clear. It strongly suggests that English was used at some point in the past in distributing the game. Although, it is possible that it could be a play on words on the German name, this seems less likely when you consider the distribution around Europe and the other very different names that Germany still has for the game.

The other strong connection that this gives is to Central America.

There are sources that have described all 3 of the games as Liar's dice, normally with a group of names associated for each game. However, these groups of names have been used to describe one of the other games. This shows that there has been more than one complete crossover of name without changing the game. For a cross-over like this to happen would take someone to know the rules without the games name. It is likely that another person recognised the mechanism and gave the name of the game that they knew.

This combined with the Mexico name is strongly indicative that a dice game with bluffing was introduced to Europe from Central America. if the game came from central america it is likely that is based upon a game that originated there. Therefore, I suspect that this dice game was being played without the standard cubic dice. This would make it much more likely directly related to Dudo rather than the current set of rules.

If a game was introduced from central America that originated there, then it could well explain the second name. France could have obtained there name Quinito from say French Guyana. This could give a name much closer to the original game name. The word Quinito is not typical French and is consistent with a South American Spanish influence. The name is vaguely similar to cachito. The "quin" part clearly shows a link to 5 from the latin but as the game is not on the Italian wiki, it is my guess that this had some relation to the game. Here, I would speculate that the French name is linked to game related to dudo and it too has changed.

If dudo is over 300 years old there must have been at least one other bluffing game for a cross-over of name to have happened.

No bluffing game was prevalent enough to make the "Compleat Gamester" the version I found on google books is from 1754. It only lists 2 pure dice games. Hazard and a game called "Inn and Inn". With no link to bluffing or the current rules. this would mean that a bluffing game is unlikely to have had sufficient popularity to evolve to a single set of standard rules.

This is where the final linguistic name comes in. Kuriki is clearly influenced by a Sino-Tibetan language such as Japanese or Chinese. I didn'tfind any match for this game. The lack of Japanese wikipedia would make a Chinese origin more likely for this name if it did exist

There is one paper that refers to Liar's dice being a common game in China and Hong Kong but gives no details to show whcih game they think of as Liar's dice. I also believe that there are some Chinese games that are played by using very small dice and turning a cup upside down. While there don't appear to be any English Language sources to support the name. There is a dice app that is called kiriki and described as a Japanese version of Yacht.

I would suggest that the game is based upon a Chinese game but this can only be judged if someone brings out a list of Chinese dice games and currently only a very small proportion are mentioned in English. The one source that may give some more information is "the complete book of dice games" but it apparently only has 39 games.

Without original research I don't believe that the history of any Liar's dice can be sourced in English.Tetron76 (talk) 16:04, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Name for this article[edit]

After having tried to find some sources for this page I have failed to find any conclusive evidence of the game origins but about 20+ names. I am not convinced that Mia is clearcut choice of name. currently there is a:

Kinito page that exists on France wikipedia and as Quinito on Spanish wiki [2]

Wikipedia also has

Mexico (game)

There used to be an article on kuriki as can be seen in the above discussions

Kuriki wikibin.org/articles/kuriki.html

Other names to consider include

Maxchen [3]
Maxchen (Meiern) [4]
Maya [5]
Meier [6]
Mexican ehow and [7]
Deception [8]

Other names exist as listed in Bgg [9] and for an android application [10] To add to this are other phrases such as Kiriki, Kariki Little Max, Lugen, Maior,Mire.

There appear to be two completely distinct introductions kariki, kiriki, kuriki. Seems to be Japanese in origin to explain the change in the first vowel. Then there is the French Kinito that could be a separate derivation or linked to kiriki if old enough. Deception is a modern adapation.

My concern is that the etymology of this game strongly suggests a Central American origin. With the Mayan adjective being used for Mexico too. I suspect that Mia is a corruption of Maya. it has been suggested that Maxchen is a Germanization of the word Mexican. But since there is the name "little Max" this suggests that the game is at least old enough to have been reintroduced to English.

While Mexican might seem to be a sensible choice there are other sources giving Mexican as the Liar's dice variant. Similarly, Mexico has some deviation from the rules in some sources by adding scoring.

Without the reliable sources I am tempted to re-anglicize Mia to Maya. Almost certainly Kinito needs to be merged .Tetron76 (talk) 13:05, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See section above too because of edit conflict.Tetron76 (talk) 13:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems likely the game has a fairly long history undocumented in the literature. This makes it difficult to argue about which one of a list of names that sound alike but are spelled differently is the "right" one. Of course we must make a choice (with redirects from other names), and this ought to be based on reliable sources... Oh, I don't know.--Nø (talk) 07:47, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that Quinito looks promising. The article es:Kiriki (juego) has a lot more details quite similar to the present game and says it's a Basque game derived from Quinito. So maybe it's an old Spanish or Basque game after all. The general rule for games as for dialects and many other areas is that because of the founder effect, the region that has the greatest variability is usually the region of origin. Hans Adler 10:26, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From having found the original wiki kuriki article, I think that kiriki, karaki and kuriki can be dismissed. I suspect that there is a dice game from the far east that has this name but it seems that the recent usage was just made-up. My concern with Quinito is the comment on the Spanish page that states "that older people know it with a different name".Tetron76 (talk) 16:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An iPhone app of the game claims that it's also known as Major, Sinclair or Les Indiens. But this French discussion is really interesting as it gives many new names: Pache go zone (without the special role of 21), Kinetto/Kinito/Quinito, Duduche, Maya, La Mer. This French page mentions Duduche and Rampo as names and has an excellent description of the rules including strategy. The greater variation of names in French and the fact that some of them are clearly Spanish suggests to me that the game could in fact originate around the Pyrenees. From there it would naturally have been taken to South America. But the evidence is so weak that this is just speculation. Hans Adler 10:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that there willl turn out to be two options. Either we re-write the Liar's dice article to cover any game with the bluffing mechanism and stick to sourcing the rules in Dudo, Mia and Liar's dice (poker dice) Possibly using the commercial names as primary of Perudo, Deception and Bluff. Or we pick the English version of the German or french names : Maya, Mexican or Kinito.Tetron76 (talk) 16:15, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have ordered the German book "Humboldt Enzyklopädie der Würfelspiele", which I hope will give some more insight. They wouldn't deliver it to Austria, so it's making a detour that will delay delivery by about two weeks. Rainer Knizia's book "Dice games properly explained" might be even more helpful, but I will wait for this book first. Hans Adler 16:37, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have no evidence whatsoever to back this up but with all the Mia, Maya, Meyer, Meier sounding names, I wonder if the original name (or at least, the version they got their name from) was something like Maior (also spelled Major) which is Latin for greater. It's pure conjecture obviously but it does fit with the idea of always having to call a higher number. AlbionBT (talk) 11:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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