Abbott created all of his card games during the 1950s, starting with Babel in 1951, and ending with Auction in 1956. Soon after, he moved to New York City, where the rules for his game Eleusis were first published by Martin Gardner in his "Mathematical Games" column. Motivated by the article, Abbott self-published the rules for four of his card games in the book "Four New Card Games" in 1962, which he sold by mail. In 1963, the book "Abbott's New Card Games" was published by Sol Stein of Stein and Day, containing the rules for all eight of his card games and the rules for his chess variant, Baroque chess. In 1968, the publisher Funk & Wagnalls published a paperback edition of "Abbott's New Card Games", in which Abbott slightly modified the rules of Baroque chess, but these changes never became popular. Around the same time that "Abbott's New Card Games" was published, Abbott sent his maze, "Traffic Maze in Floyd's Knob", to Martin Gardner. This was the first logic maze to be published, appearing in Gardner's "Mathematical Games" column.