Ok, I've got two achievements left; Win 30 Games of Caravan and Pick 50 Pockets. Picking 50 pockets is stupidly easy to do; winning Caravan is not, and it isn't fun. (It can't be broken with the luck skill like Blackjack can). But there must be a trick to it, so what of it? Are there are really killer deck builds out there for Caravan that let you get fairly easy wins?

PS. Yes, I do have a luck of 7, and I have plenty of cards to pick from.

No idea man, i've never had the patience to learn how to play it myself.

Umm...it's very easy to win at Caravan. The proverbial deck is stacked in your favor. The computer never plays cards on your side of the board, so you have a tremendous advantage. Pick on a patsy like Ringo who can play over and over again and you'll roll up the wins. A randomized deck is more than enough, but if you want a better deck, throw together some combos that add up to 24-26 (like 10-9-7, 9-8-7), throw in a few small cards to top off downward caravans, some Kings to double up, some Jacks to zap enemy caravans, maybe a joker or two just for grins. Put cards of the same suit and Queens become superfluous. Just practice and you'll be fine.

I found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkqdGuJFuuk helpful.

Kings and Jacks are very very good to have. I tend to stack up with mid range cards and all the kings and jacks from the various decks. Use the kings on the opponents side to double up their tens to put their caravans over and the jacks to strip their cards. Use the kings on your side to double up cards to reach the 20s faster.

The game is extremely broken in the players favor as the computer doesn't mess with your side of the board.

By far the easiest way to get to grips with caravan is by loading your deck with 6's, 10's and Kings. Every other card is irrelevant.

When the game begins just discard 9's etc until you have 3 10's, then begin your caravans. Start by laying 3 10's, then put down kings, then finish them all using your 6's. Having a surplus of kings is handy too as you can use them to take down your opponents stacks. using this method it's easy to get a 100:0 win ratio.

This is how I roll as well. I make TONS of money from caravan. Much more than I ever did in a casino and I even hit the 32k caps jackpot in the Tops playing the one armed bandit. No-Bark Noonan in Novac and the NCR embassador on the Strip (forget his name) both have 2k caps so play with them several times. Make sure you buy every card you can to max out your deck.

Also, if your opponent starts off on a deck, don't try to continue on that same one. For example if they start on the far right you start on the left or middle.

You don't need a 'rigged' deck to obliterate people at Caravan, since they all play like brain-dead monkeys.

The tip above about starting on a different 'route' than the one the NPC starts is not a bad idea for those getting started, but after a few games you'll see that playing to the same spot is not necessarily a bad idea as you may be able to overtake them.

What makes the game stupidly easy is the fact the NPCs do not use the dirty tricks the game provides to hose you over. Did you just double an 8 to hit 26? The NPC will never double the 10 underneath so that stack will be good for the rest of the game. Did the NPC do the same thing? Double the 10 and odds are good his/her next action will be to discard it. Alternatively, discard the 10 and all the other matching cards from his/her side of the table and you've probably won right there.

Kings and Jacks are insanely powerful in the PC's hands. Queens are not worth playing on the opponent, but can be useful if you have no cards that are legal for a given stack but do have one that would bump it up to winning territory if the direction/suit was reversed. Jokers can be really dangerous to play, as they hit both sides of the table at once, however if the NPC has a lot of cards of one suit you can really hose him/her over in a hurry.

What helped me in the beginning was a video tutorial because the written rules
were a bit unclear. Once you get the basics down, you'll find the game rather enjoyable though
I play with 8(x6), 9(x6), 10(x6), K(x6) and J(x6) and that makes exactly 30 cards.
The more "concentrated" your deck is, the most likely you will get a good initial hand.
Your 8s will stack with 10s or 9s. You just wait for the Ks to come out, while you nuke
your opponent's caravans with the Js.
After a while, you'll get tired of winning that easily and you'll start diluting your deck
with other cards that fit like 6s and 7s and a Joker or 2 maybe.
I like to travel to each merchant from time to time just to check if he's got any
card I could insert in my deck, since I now play only with Non-The-Tops cards...

Oh, I even went as far as trying the game for real vs. my brother.
The first time, we spent a whole night playing and couldn't stop. Really!
It's soooooo fun when also your opponent _does_ play offensive cards on your
caravans and you don't know what he's up to!