Stamp Showdown: Card Game & Playing Cards by Robin Stokkel

[kevork]

[Kickstarter Notification Link]

[EndersGame]

Robin did a great job with his deck and card game River Rats, so I'm pleased to see him producing more great content.

I love card games, so I did some more looking into what Stamp Showdown is about. I immediately recognized the name of the game's designer, James Ernest. He has produced many successful card games under the label Cheapass Games. Stamp Showdown is basically James' game Lamarckian Poker, but with some tweaks. Over on BoardGameGeek you'll find a number of reviews and more info about Lamarckian Poker.



Here's how Robin describes the origin of the Stamp Showdown variant of Lamarckian Poker over on his website:

Introducing Stamp Showdown

My friends and I were on my balcony, enjoying some Korean bites and makgeolli (Korean rice wine), which serves as fuel for our card game try-out session. While the others were still eating, I took 30 seconds to explain the next game we were going to try. The first few had missed the mark, so we really hope this one would bring the fun.

In preparation for the evening, I scoured Reddit and BoardGameGeek for novel card game designs that can be played with a standard deck of playing cards; the signature of my publishing company, Four Suit Studio. I selected five games, and we started testing the more complex ones.

The game I just explained in between bites was Lamarckian Poker. It’s a design by James Ernest who is known for games like Lords of Vegas, Tak, Light Speed: Arena and 252 other designs. Despite its simplicity, it stood out right away. While playing, we were having fun within minutes: we were laughing, trying to mess with each other’s hands, and we got fully hooked. It was a blast!

The next day, I reached out to James, told him I loved his game, and what I think could use some tweaks, and asked if I could license a new variant of it and if he wanted to develop it further. He responded swiftly and was positive to all of it!

Over the past few weeks, he’s been refining the game, while I worked on the theme and ran some playtests. The result is Stamp Showdown. Right now, the rules are 98% done, and you can already try it!

So how does it work? Here's Robin's overview:

About the game:

​In Stamp Showdown, you’re competing in a high-profile stamp competition where only the most stunning collection will win. Each turn, trade stamps from your hand with the central trader’s market, curating your set while cleverly disrupting your opponents’. When the final showdown begins, only the most impressive combination will take the prize!

You can play it with a regular deck. Robin has made the current version of the rules available here.

Robin's website also has some more pictures of the components, and explains the gameplay as follows:

Step 1: Choose Your Trade

Each collector secretly selects one stamp to trade, placing it face-down on the table. Then, everyone reveals at once!



Step 2: Resolve the Trades

Starting from the highest stamp, each card trades with the market. Claiming all stamps that match its rank or suit.



Step 3: Showdown

After seven rounds, compare your collections. Only the most beautiful poker-style set of stamps will win the exhibition!

[EndersGame]

Just bumping this thread, now that this Kickstarter project has officially launched.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/st ... p-showdown



I'll be posting a longer overview (with more images) and review in the next day or so.

[wingedpotato]

I'm glad they're funded and I hope they get even more, but I just can't get into this deck design. I think the updated game tweaks improve Lamarckian Poker a good deal.

[EndersGame]

Here's my write-up about this custom deck and the game.

Stamp Showdown Playing Cards and Card Game (Kickstarter)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/st ... p-showdown

A stamp-themed custom deck of cards that includes a reimplemented version of the fun filler game Lamarckian Poker

Price: €15 for Standard Edition, €29 for Deluxe Edition
Kickstarter ends: Thursday, February 12, 2026



Stamp Showdown is an improved reimplementation of Lamarckian Poker, a game first created in 1996 by prolific game designer James Ernest for a standard deck of cards.

This has now been further developed and polished under the new name "Stamp Showdown", which makes some minor adjustments, and adds a postage stamp theme. While it can still be played with a regular deck of 52 playing cards, the Kickstarter project offers the benefits of a custom deck of cards, two player aids, and a rule book.

The Deck

The custom deck is available as a Standard Edition or a Deluxe Edition. The Deluxe version is a Kickstarter exclusive, and comes with a magnetic box that opens up to function as the game board and scoring pad, along with a dry-erase marker.



Below is an overview of all the cards in the deck. There's a unique stamp illustration on each, with the artwork by Rixt Heerschop and the graphic design by Florian Fiedler.

The four suits represent different eras, and each value has its own theme: Men Activists (Kings), Women Activists (Queens), Artists (Jacks), Science (Aces), Ships (2s), Trains (3s), Architecture (4s), Aerospace (5s), Medicine (6s), Energy (7s), Communications Technology (8s), Racing Sports (9s), Bicycles (10s), Sun & Moon (Jokers).





Two player aids are included as extra cards, and have an overview of the poker hand rankings that are part of the game.

The Game

Along with the deck you get a rulebook for the card game, which is for 2 to 6 players. You can already try playing the game with a regular deck of playing cards; this is encouraged by the creator, and is how the game originated. This quickplay video explains how the game works, and the rulebook is available online as a free PDF download.



Gameplay is super simple, especially if you already are familiar with poker hand rankings.

● Setup: Cards are removed from the game depending on the number of players (for 6 players use the entire deck; for 5 remove the 2s; for 4 remove the 2-3s, for 3 remove the 2-4s, for 2 remove the 2-5s). Each player starts with a hand of four cards, and then four cards are dealt into a common pool called the Market.

● Offer Trade: Each round consists of players simultaneously playing and revealing a card from their hand. These are then resolved from highest card to lowest (Ace is high, and ties are resolved in order of suit: Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs). In that order, players get to trade with the Market the card they played.

● Make Trade: You take into your hand all the cards from the Market that match the rank or suit of the card you offered, and then put the card you played back into the Market. If your card has no suit or value matches to what is in the Market, you get to take a card of your choice. After all players have done this, the remaining cards in the Market are discarded, and the next round begins with four new cards dealt.

● Showdown: After doing seven such rounds, players use their cards in hand to produce the best five-card poker hand they can, which are then compared in a Showdown. The strongest hand relative to the other players gets points equal to the number of players, the next best hand gets one less point, and so on, while the worst hand gets zero points. The rules recommend playing four such "Competitions", each with its own Showdown and scoring, and adding up your scores to determine the overall winner, but you can play fewer if you wish.

Aside from the theme, if you're curious to know what the small changes made to the gameplay of the original Lamarckian Poker game are, see my overview elsewhere. For the most part these changes are minor, and are improvements. Stamp Showdown keeps what was good about Lamarckian Poker, and the adjustments it makes to the rules only make it even better.



Impressions

This project grabbed my interest for several reasons:

1. The custom deck. I'm a big enthusiast of custom playing cards. This is effectively a well-produced and quality deck of playing cards with custom artwork that you can use for playing any traditional card game with a standard deck. The colours and artwork have a very original feel, and work well with the stamp collecting theme, even though the theme isn't integral to the gameplay. Even purely as a custom deck of cards, it's something unique and fresh.

2. The game. I love modern card games that are played with a standard deck of playing cards. Many good ones have emerged in recent years, Regicide being one of the more well known ones. Lamarckian Poker was already a clever and popular card game that got a lot of praise for being a fun filler game that played quickly and smartly. Effectively the game is about improving your hand, it's usually a good strategy to first try to play cards that increase the size of your hand, giving you more scope to work with, and then focus on refining and improving your hand. The decisions this involves are tense and fun, because sometimes the cards you want to keep to build the best possible hand are also the ones you need to play in order to get better cards or to prevent your opponents from getting what they need. The simplicity and speed of the game are other real strengths.

3. The designer. I've enjoyed the output of prolific game designer James Ernest ever since he began producing games under his Cheapass Games label, and more recently his Crab Fragment Labs brand. He's produced many wonderful little games on the lighter side of things, and Lamarckian Poker is one of them. So when I heard that Stamp Showdown was a reworked version of that, it got my immediate attention.

4. The producer. I've also followed with appreciation previous projects by the producer, Robin Stokkel from Four Suit Studio, who is a proven and respected creator. His previously released game River Rats is a creative poker-style game and also came with a custom deck with charming artwork by the same artist, Rixt Heerschop. Robin's goal is to have production of Stamp Showdown begin in February after the Kickstarter ends, with fulfilment and shipping in May and June. Based on my experience with Robin's previous project, that seems to be a reasonable expectation.

Recommendation

Not only is this a chance to get a creative and interesting custom deck of cards, but you also get a clever card game that is worthwhile in its own right.

Stamp Showdown is a clever little game that will appeal to people as a filler, especially to those who enjoy games with poker elements. I'm pleased that James Ernest's Lamarckian Poker will be getting love from a whole new set of people, and to see it getting a fresh coat of paint along with some rule improvements that make it even better.



Kickstarter link

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/st ... p-showdown