Pot Luck

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Card values
3. Setup
4. Your turn
5. Talking and signals
6. End of the game
7. Difficulty
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Pot Luck is a cooperative adding game: all players form one team and win or lose together. In the middle of the table there are three pots – three places where cards are piled up. Taking turns, each of you adds one card from your hand to a pot. A pot that reaches exactly 21 scores for the team; a pot that goes over 21 is bust and costs the team a life. Score enough pots before your lives or the cards run out, and you have won.

It sounds like Blackjack, but it plays very differently: there is no dealer and nobody plays alone. You may never put a card on your own card, so every pot is built by at least two players – and you may not say which cards you hold. Your only way to "talk" is the open card: one card of your hand that lies face up for everyone to see.

• Players: 2–5 (best with 2).
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers and two coins (lives).

Pot Luck is a new game written for this site and not yet playtested. The levels were set with a computer simulation (see "Difficulty"); if they don't suit your table, change the target first.

Card values

Suits don't matter.

Setup

1. Choose a level (see "Difficulty"). It tells you how many open cards each of you has, how many lives the team starts with and how many pots you must score – the target. Normal: 1 open card, 1 life, target 13.
2. Put the coins for your lives in the middle – on Normal, one coin.
3. Shuffle and deal each player a hand: 4 cards with 2 players, 3 cards with 3 players, 2 cards with 4 or 5 players. The rest of the deck goes face down in the middle as the stock (draw pile).
4. Look at your cards. Then each player chooses their open card (on Easy, two) and lays it face up on the table in front of them. It still belongs to your hand – you may play it like any other card – but now everyone can see it. Keep your other cards hidden.
5. Leave room for three pots in a row between you (left, middle, right) and for the team's score pile. The youngest player begins; then play goes clockwise (to the left).

Your turn

1. Play one card from your hand – hidden or open – onto one of the three pots. Lay it so that it overlaps the card below and sticks out a little towards you: the top card of a pot always shows who played it. Say the pot's new total out loud. - Never on your own card: you may not play onto a pot whose top card is yours. An empty pot is open to everyone. - Exactly 21: the pot scores. Put its cards face down onto the team's score pile, so the place is empty again. Count the pots scored as you go. - Over 21: the pot is bust. Put one life coin back in the box and put the pot's cards face down to one side, out of the game. If the team had no life left, you have lost.
2. Draw the top card of the stock.
3. If you played your open card, choose one of your hidden cards and lay it face up as your new open card.

Then it's the next player's turn.

No safe card? You must always play a card. If every card in your hand would take every pot you may play on over 21, you have to play one anyway: choose the pot that goes bust.

Talking and signals

You may not give away anything about your hidden cards, and you may not ask or tell anyone where to play: no "I've got a 7", no "leave the middle pot for me", no pointing, no groaning when someone reaches for a pot.

You may say the pot totals, talk about the rules, the lives, the stock and the score – and cheer when a pot scores.

The open cards are your signal. Which card you lay face up is your choice, and it tells the others what you could do next: if your open card is a 7, a pot at 14 with someone else's card on top is one you can finish.

Example: Two players on Normal: one open card each, one life, target 13. Anna holds the 4♦ (open), K♠, 3♣ and A♥. Ben holds the 7♣ (open), 9♦, 5♠ and Q♥. All pots are empty, and Anna, the younger, begins.

1. Anna plays the K♠ on the left pot: "10." She draws the 8♦. Her open card is still the 4♦.
2. Ben sees Anna's open 4♦: a pot at 17 is one she can finish. He plays his 7♣ on the left pot: "17." He draws the 2♠ and, since he played his open card, lays the 9♦ face up as his new one.
3. Anna plays her 4♦ on the left pot: "21!" The left pot scores – 1 – and its three cards go onto the score pile. She draws the J♣ and lays it face up.
4. Ben would like to leave Anna a pot at 11 for her J♣, but from an empty pot one card can't make 11 (only an Ace could). So he gets rid of a big card while that is still safe: Q♥ on the middle pot, "10". He draws the 6♣.
5. Anna plays her A♥ as 11 on the middle pot: "21!" – 2. She draws the 5♥.
6. Ben plays the 6♣ on the left pot: "6". He draws the 10♠.
7. Anna may play on the left pot – Ben's card is on top. Ben's open 9♦ would finish a pot at 12, but she has no 6. So she plays the 5♥: "11". A pot at 11 is the best present you can make: any 10, J, Q or K finishes it, 16 cards of the deck. She draws the 7♥. Now her own card is on top of the left pot, so only Ben can play there.
8. Ben plays his hidden 10♠ on it: "21!" – 3.

Nobody said a word about their cards – but each 21 was built by both players.

End of the game

• You win together as soon as the team has scored its target of pots.
• You lose as soon as a pot goes bust while no life coin is left.
• When the stock is empty, you no longer draw. From then on you may pass instead of playing. If everybody passes in turn, or all hands are empty, before the target is reached, you have lost too. Cards left in the pots and in your hands don't count.

Difficulty

With 4 or 5 players on Easy, both cards of every hand lie face up. On Expert all hands are hidden.

The budget. The deck is worth 340 points with every Ace counted as 1, and each Ace played as 11 adds 10 more. Thirteen pots of 21 use 273 of them, so on Normal the team may waste about 67 points – ten cards or so – in bust pots, in pots that are left unfinished at the end and in cards still in your hands. Twelve pots (Easy) leave 88 points to spare, fourteen (Hard) only 46. Every life forgives one bust; without a life, the first one ends the game.

Simulation. We played 5000 deals per level and player count on the computer with a simple strategy: finish a pot whenever you can; otherwise play the card that gives the next player the best chance to finish a pot and the smallest risk of having to go bust; keep your Aces for finishing; lay your highest hidden card face up. The team won:

The same simulation shows where the game lies. With two players on Normal, random play (any card that doesn't go bust) won only about 2% of the games. Without open cards the simple strategy won 49%; with all hands face up it won 90% – so what you know about each other's cards matters more than luck. Without the "never on your own card" rule it won 94%: that rule is what turns the game into teamwork. Even with all hands face up, the strategy scored 13 pots in only about 93 deals in 100, so a few deals can't be won at all – the cards simply don't add up. Humans read each other better than this strategy; if you win easily, go up a level, and if you keep losing, go down one.

Tips for beginners

• Make pots of 11. Sixteen of the 52 cards are worth 10, so a pot at 11 is the easiest one for the next player to finish.
• Keep your Aces. An Ace finishes a pot at 20 (as 1) or at 10 (as 11). Playing it early is almost always a waste.
• Play big cards on low pots. A 10 or a King is safe on a pot of 11 or less – later, when all pots are high, it may force you to go bust.
• Keep one pot low. When all three pots are above 11 and a player holds only big cards, someone has to go bust. A low or empty pot is the team's safety valve.
• Read the open cards – and choose yours well. A high open card tells the others which total you can finish; set up a pot for a partner's open card, and don't touch a pot that someone has obviously prepared.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Open hands (for learning): play with all hands face up, but still without saying where anyone should play. In the simulation this won 9 games in 10 on Normal.
• Family game: with young children, allow talking about the cards. Play Easy and aim for as many pots as possible; the number is your score to beat next time.