Transcript
Grit
v6
A 2-Player Competitive Playing-Card Game By Zach Gage With help from Doug Wilson, Greg Wohlwend, Paul Sottosanti, Max Temkin, Ben Sawyer, Amy Gage, and Jesse Fuchs.
Grit is a tiny intense Blackjack-like. It is a game of Information. Just like Blackjack, each player is trying to have a board closest to, but not over, 21. Multiple games of Grit are often played in a set, with the first player to 50 points winning. A single game of Grit lasts 2-5 minutes.
Overview A single game of Grit contains only 12 cards, and of those 12, only 10 will ever be seen. Each player begins with a starting hand of 4 cards that they keep hidden, and a single visible card in their board (along with 2 empty spaces). See diagram at right.
Player 1
Player 1 Hand (Hidden)
The game takes place in 4 rounds, during which each player plays a card from their hand to any space on any board. Playing on top of a previously played card replaces it. The goal is to, by the end of the game, have a board that totals the closest or equal to 21, but not over 21. (If a player’s board totals over 21 during a game that’s fine.)
Setup A Grit deck only consists of only 12 cards. 11 of these are consistent between games, but one is random each game.
empty slots starting card (face-up)
Player 1 Board Player 2 Board
starting card (face-up) empty slots
Collect all of the Hearts and Spades from a normal deck of cards. Discard the rest of the deck.
Player 2 Hand (Hidden)
From the Spades, take only the Ace through Jack (discard the Queen and the King, they are not in the game.) From the Hearts, take only the Ace through 9 (discard the 10, Jack, Queen and the King, they are not in the game.) Shuffle the Hearts, select one at random, and place it without seeing it in the deck of Spades. Shuffle the Spades and the random Heart Together.
Deal out 4 cards FACE DOWN to each player. These cards make up your hand. You may look at your hand. Then deal one card FACE UP to the table in front of each player. This card, along with two empty spaces, makes up the starting tableau for each player. The remaining two cards are discard face down. Like Blackjack, all face cards count as 10s, but unlike Blackjack, the Ace is always 1.
Play In Grit, each player has a hidden hand of four cards and a three-slot “board” on the table. Grit takes place in four rounds, one for each of the cards in the players hands.
Player 2
Rounds Once per round, each player plays one card from their hand, beginning with the player with the lowest board total. If both players have equal board total, the player with the lowest single card goes first. If both players have the same lowest card value, the player with the heart goes first. If both players board totals are zero (due to Wagers, see next page), the player with the lowest card covered by the wager goes first.
Cards are played face-down to any slot in any board that does not already contain a face-down card. (e.g. you couldn’t play to the same slot that your opponent just played to). After both players have played, the round ends. The cards are revealed, and the next round begins. Any card that has been covered by another, has been replaced, and no longer counts towards the total of the players board that contains it.
Wagers
Game End
Once each, players may play a card horizontally to a slot on their opponent’s board.
After the fourth round is over and both players have no more remaining cards, flip all face-down cards (including Wagers), total up your board, and see who has the best score.
A card played in this way is called a Wager. Wagers are not revealed at the end of a round like normal. Instead, Wagers are only revealed after the final round has completed.
If your board totals to over 21, and your opponent’s is under, they win immediately
As such, Wagers may never be played on top of, and do not count for the purposes of determining who plays first each round.
If you both go over 21, the player closest to 21 wins. If the totals are equal, the player who has wagered the least wins. The winning player recieves points equal to the sum of both players wagers. If a player has not wagered, their wager is 0. A new random heart is selected, the cards are reshuffled, and the next game begins. The first player to 50 points wins the set.
Optional Tracking If you’d like, you may lay out the: Ace through Jack of clubs, and a 9 of Diamonds, along the side of the play area, and flip over the cards that have been played (the 9 represents the random heart). This can be helpful for getting a feel of what cards are remaining in the deck.
Grit is © Zach Gage 2013, 2015 @helvetica - http://www.stfj.net
