Spot On

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Card values
3. Setup
4. Turning up a target
5. Your turn
6. Hitting a target
7. Talking and the signal
8. Winning and losing
9. Example
10. Difficulty
11. Tips for beginners
12. Variants

Overview

Spot On is a cooperative calculation game: all players form one team and win or lose together. A target from 100 to 999 is turned up, and a running total starts at 0. In turn, each of you plays one card from your hand and decides what it does: it is added to the total, subtracted from it, the total is multiplied by it or divided by it. The moment the total is exactly the target, you have hit it, and the next target comes up. Hit five targets before the deck runs out, and the team wins. The catch: you may not talk about your cards. Apart from one card each of you may show per target, you have to read your partner from the numbers they leave you.

• Players: 2–4; best with 2.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, its 2 jokers (for some levels), and pencil and paper for the running total.

Spot On is a new game written for this site and not yet playtested. The idea comes from the numbers round of the TV game show Countdown, in which contestants try to reach a three-digit target with plus, minus, times and divided by. The number of targets and jokers is the first thing to tune: if your games are won or lost too easily, change it before anything else (see "Difficulty").

Card values

• Ace = 1, 2 to 10 count their number, Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13.
• Suits don't matter.
• A joker is wild: when you play it, you choose its value, anything from 1 to 13, and say it.

Setup

1. Choose a level (see "Difficulty"). For your first game play Normal: the 52 cards plus one joker (with 3 or 4 players both jokers), and you need five targets to win.
2. Shuffle and deal 5 cards to each player (with 3 or 4 players: 4 each). Your cards are your hand – don't show them to anyone.
3. Put the rest face down in the middle as the stock. Leave room next to it for a face-up discard pile, for the target (three cards in a row) and for the chain – the row of cards played towards the current target.
4. Put the paper where everybody can read it. The youngest player begins; after that, play goes clockwise (to the left).

Turning up a target

The player whose turn it is turns up three cards from the stock and lays them in a row. They give the target digit by digit:

1. Hundreds: Ace to 9 count 1 to 9. If the card is a 10, a face card or a joker, put it at the bottom of the stock and turn up the next card instead.
2. Tens and 3. units: Ace to 9 count 1 to 9; a 10, Jack, Queen or King counts 0. A joker goes to the bottom of the stock; turn up the next card.

Write the target on the paper. The total starts at 0, and the same player takes the first turn for this target.

Example: 3♦, 4♣, 8♠ is the target 348. 7♥, K♣, 5♠ is 705; 10♦, then 2♥, 9♣, J♠ is 290 – the 10♦ goes to the bottom of the stock.

Your turn

Do one of these two things:

• Play a card: lay a card from your hand face up at the end of the chain, say the calculation aloud and write it down – for example "30 plus 13 is 43". You choose plus, minus, times or divided by:
• The total must always be a whole number and never below 0. So you may only divide if there is no remainder (84 ÷ 4 = 21 is fine, 84 ÷ 5 is not), and only subtract a card that isn't bigger than the total.
• The first card of each target is simply added: 0 plus the card.
• There is no upper limit: 43 × 13 = 559 is allowed, and so is 1392, as long as you can work it out.
• Pass: lay one card from your hand face up on the discard pile. The total stays as it is.

Then draw the top card of the stock, so that you have your full hand again, and it is the next player's turn. Once the stock is empty, you no longer draw; a player without cards is skipped.

A pass costs a card, just like a play. But it is the only way to leave the total unchanged – and sometimes the total is exactly where your partner needs it.

Hitting a target

As soon as the total equals the target, you have hit it. Tick it off on the paper. Put the chain and the three target cards on the discard pile. The next player (to the left of whoever hit it) turns up a new target from the stock and begins it with the total at 0. The cards in your hands stay with you.

Talking and the signal

During the game you may not give any information about your cards: no "I've got a 4", no "leave it at 87", no pointing, no sighing. You may say your calculations aloud (you must), check each other's arithmetic, and talk about the rules, whose turn it is, the target and how many cards are left in the stock.

The only way to tell the team something is the signal. Once per target, each player may show one card:

1. At the start of your turn, before you play or pass, lay one card from your hand face up in front of you.
2. It still belongs to your hand. You play it (or pass it) later like any other card, whenever you like. You draw nothing for showing it.
3. When the target is hit, take it back into your hand. For the next target you may show a card again.

Now everybody knows you hold that card – and can try to leave you a total from which it hits the target.

Winning and losing

• You win as soon as you have hit the number of targets your level asks for (Normal: five).
• You lose if the stock runs out while a target is being turned up, or if all hands are empty and the current target has not been hit.

You are never stuck: any card can always be added. And the deal is never hopeless from the start: we checked 2000 random deals by computer for two, three and four players, and in every one of them the first target could have been hit with the cards dealt alone – if the players had known each other's hands. What makes Spot On hard is the silence and the budget: every play and every pass uses up a card.

Example

Example: Level Normal. The target is 3♦ 4♣ 8♠ – 348. Anna holds 6♥ K♠ 8♦ 9♣ 2♠, Ben holds 5♣ 4♥ Q♦ 7♠ J♣.

1. Anna plays the 6♥: "0 plus 6 is 6." She draws a card.
2. Ben shows his 4♥ as his signal: he lays it face up in front of him. Then he plays the 5♣: "6 times 5 is 30." He draws a card.
3. Anna knows that Ben holds a 4. It hits 348 from 344 (plus 4), from 352 (minus 4) and from 87 (times 4). She can't reach any of them in one step, but she finds a way in two: 344 is 43 × 8, and she holds an 8. She plays the K♠: "30 plus 13 is 43." She draws.
4. Ben can't hit 348 from 43. But 43 is a strange number to leave – Anna must have a plan. So he passes: he puts the Q♦ on the discard pile, the total stays 43, and he draws.
5. Anna plays the 8♦: "43 times 8 is 344."
6. Ben plays the 4♥: "344 plus 4 is 348." Target hit! Anna, to Ben's left, turns up the next one.

Difficulty

The budget. Every target takes three cards from the stock, and every play or pass takes one more. On Normal the deck holds 53 cards; five targets use 15 of them, which leaves 38 turns for five targets – about 7½ per target. Easy leaves 40 turns for four targets (10 each), Hard 37 for five (7.4 each) without signals, Expert 36 for six (6 each) – the two jokers are its only help.

In a computer simulation with a simple strategy – each player sees only their own hand and the shown cards, hits the target whenever they can, and otherwise leaves the total from which the next player is most likely to hit it soon – two players won about 82% of 5000 games on Easy, 54% on Normal, 36% on Hard and 9% on Expert. A target took them about 7 to 8 turns. The signal is worth about ten percentage points: without it, Normal dropped to about 41% in a smaller run. The strategy never plans ahead with its own cards, so thoughtful players should do better. If you win easily, go up a level; if you keep running out of cards, go down one.

Three or four players: each player holds 4 cards, and Normal and Hard get one joker more (Normal both jokers, Hard one); Easy and Expert stay as they are. More players means more hands between your turns that you know nothing about. In the same simulation (2000 games each), three players won about 82% on Easy, 59% on Normal, 35% on Hard and 3% on Expert – close to two players. Four players won only about 72%, 32%, 18% and almost never on Expert, so with four, start on Easy.

Tips for beginners

• Work backwards from the target. Before your turn, list the numbers from which one card hits it: the target plus or minus 1 to 13, and the target divided by any card that divides it. For 348 that is 335–347, 349–361, 174 (× 2), 116 (× 3), 87 (× 4), 58 (× 6), 29 (× 12) – and 696 (÷ 2) and so on.
• Multiply early, fine-tune late. Get into the right hundreds with one or two multiplications, then close in with plus and minus.
• Show a finisher. A small card or a joker is the best signal: your partner can then aim for a total from which it hits.
• Read strange totals. If your partner leaves a total that isn't near the target, they probably have a plan. If you can't hit it and can't improve it, pass.
• Don't waste turns. A pass costs a card just like a play. Pass only when the total is already good for your partner.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Open hands: play with your hands face up on the table, but still without talking – good for learning.
• Endless: play without a fixed number of targets until the stock is empty. Your score is the number of targets hit; try to beat your record.
• Small numbers: for younger players, turn up only two cards for the target (tens and units, the first card Ace to 9), and allow only plus and minus.