Mikado (game)

Mikado game

Mikado is a game of skill that originated in Europe and is said to have been known even among the Romans (see game ). However, its Japanese name suggests that it may have been inspired by East Asian oracle techniques. The game is played with several colorful wooden sticks, the most important of which is called a Mikado.

Surname

Mikado game from the early 17th century

The game gets its name from the stick with the highest value: it is striped blue and is called Mikado , actually an outdated name of the Japanese emperor ( Tennō ). The other staffs have names like Mandarin (= Chinese court official), Samurai (= Japanese warrior) or Kuli (= Chinese worker).

There is also evidence of a connection with the Tsuchimikado house. This is a family of Japanese court astrologers and fortune tellers originally named Abe. The Abe / Tsuchimikado specialized in Chinese oracle techniques, which among other things were carried out with long sticks ( yarrow oracles ). Similar techniques found their way into Buddhism.

Other names and variants:

• Spellicans ( UK )
• Jonchets ( France )
• Mikado, Kaiserspiel, Federspiel, Zitterwackel ( Germany )
• Chien Tung ( China )
• Mikado, pick-up sticks, spellicans, jackstraws ( orig.jerk-straws ) ( USA )
• Spilikins / Spillikins (orig.Spelleken) ( Canada )
• Selahtikan Straws / Scattering Straws ( Lenni-Lenape- Indians)

regulate

Components

The usual Mikado game consists of 41 sticks ( Mikado sticks , Mikado sticks ) approx. 18 cm long and 3 mm thick. The ends of the bars are pointed. The bars should be absolutely straight and equally thick. As a rule, the mikado sticks are made of wood .

The bars have colored markings that correspond to different values:

Surname	Color code	value	number
mikado	thin blue spiral line (or black stripes)	20th	1
Mandarin	blue-red-blue	10	5
Bonzen (Japanese bōzu, priest '→ bonze )	red-blue-red-blue-red	5	5
samurai	red-yellow-blue (or red-green-blue)	3	15th
Kuli (Chinese for "workers")	Red Blue	2	15th

So there are a total of 170 points.

game

mikado

The game is played on a table or on a smooth floor.

The first player puts all sticks bundled on the table and lets them fall over. There are at least two methods here:

1. Hold all sticks with one hand and let go
2. Hold the sticks with two hands, fan them by twisting them, then let them fall

In any case, the bars then lie chaotically one above the other on the table.

Now one stick after the other should be removed without moving other sticks. Here, too, there are several techniques: By hand:

• just take ("lonely" bars)
• roll away carefully (several sticks next to each other)
• pull out (free stick between others)
• set up by pressing on the pointed end (rods that only touch the ground with one end)
• touch and lift both ends at the same time (stick on top)

Anyone who already has the Mikado (or, in the case of simplified rules, only a mandarin), may also use this as a "helper":

• Roll the stick away with the tip
• go under the staff and then throw up

If a second stick moves during the attempt (usually commented on with “has wobbled”), it is canceled. The remaining sticks are collected and it is the next player's turn.

Most of the time the game is played until all sticks have been taken from the players.

Sometimes a certain number of rounds (e.g. five) is played, in which case the player who has collected the most points wins. If two players are tied, the player with the most sticks wins; if there is another tie, another round is played.

Rule variants

• A "bad" throw can be repeated
• You can get up, but not leave your seat
• The deck is not shuffled, but the next player continues
• Whoever causes the wobbling loses the points they have reached. But you can abort and let the next player make the “impossible” move
• Anyone who can record pen, samurai, bonzen and mandarin in exactly this order receives a bonus (e.g. double the number of points)

Allowed helpers:

• Mikado (traditional)
• Mikado / Mandarin (simplified)
• Mikado / mandarin / bigwigs
• Mikado only if the player also has a stick of any other kind (coolie, samurai, bonzen, mandarin)
• Exactly the right helper in each case; the Mikado must therefore be picked up without an assistant
• If you use the wrong staff as a helper, you lose your points for this round.

The stick that "wobbled":

• still goes to the player
• is taken out
• will be dropped immediately

Phrase

“ Official Mikado means: if you move, you have lost.” This joke from the program of one of the four most important cabaret stages in the GDR ( Die Distel , Die Pfeffermühle (Leipzig), Academixer , Herkuleskeule ) featured in the “1. National Theater Festival of the GDR ”, the news magazine Der Spiegel made it known in the West with an article dated February 9, 1987. Mikado has since become a metaphor for governmental and political inaction.

Shortly before the federal election in 2005 , the then North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers said on September 14 on the television program N24 : “And I don't think much of a grand coalition. It's gonna be a Mikado coalition. There are two sitting across from each other. And whoever moves first has lost. "Immediately after the election, which actually led to a coalition government of CDU / CSU and SPD, Jürgen Thumann , the then President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) , said " from the point of view of industry and economy… bitterly disappointed ”and, by the way, just like Rüttgers: A grand coalition carries“ the risk that it will become a mica coalition : the first to move has lost. ”The Wiener Zeitung headline on September 20, 2005:“ Economy fears the Mikado effect. "

In a press release from the Federal Environment Ministry on July 7, 2009 on climate protection , Sigmar Gabriel said: “The world community must stop playing Mikado . The development in Germany shows: It is by no means the case that the one who moves first loses. "

At the opening of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management's Euro Finance Week on November 15, 2010, the then President of the German Bundesbank, Axel A. Weber , justified his call for reforms in the German Landesbank sector as follows: “I believe that the Mikado -Strategy that has been applied so far is not expedient. "

Trivia

In 1975 the game was the content of a song by the singer Simone Drexel , which she composed and wrote herself. It was Switzerland's contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest 1975 and reached 6th place.

Web links

Commons : Mikado  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wiktionary: Mikado  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Approach you reddish . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1987, pp. 192-194 ( online ).
2. ↑ http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/was-spitzenpolitiker-von-mogere-koalionen-halten;961274
3. ↑ Bundestag election: Business fears “Mikado coalition” . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . September 19, 2005
4. ^ Wiener Zeitung : Economy fears the Mikado effect , September 20, 2005 (accessed November 25, 2013)
5. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Deutsche Bankers demand global rules of the game . In: The press . November 15, 2010