Take or Pass

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards and their values
3. Setup
4. Playing a turn
5. End of the game and scoring
6. Tips for beginners
7. Variants

Overview

In Take or Pass every card is bad for you: at the end its value counts against you. One card at a time is turned face up, and in turn each player must either take it or say "No thanks" and pay a chip to pass it on. The longer nobody wants a card, the more chips pile up on it – until somebody decides the chips are worth it. Two things soften the blow: every chip you keep at the end counts one point in your favour, and cards with consecutive values count only as the lowest of them. The lowest score wins.

• Players: 3–7; best with 4–5.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck and chips – counters, coins or matches, up to 55 (11 per player with 5 players).

Take or Pass is our own adaptation for ordinary cards, inspired by No Thanks! (German: Geschenkt; Thorsten Gimmler, Amigo, 2004). It has not been playtested in this form yet.

The cards and their values

You play with 33 cards that stand for the values 3 to 35. Take these cards out of the deck:

• Clubs from 3 to King (11 cards): worth their face value – 3 to 10, Jack 11, Queen 12, King 13.
• All 13 diamonds: face value plus 13 – A♦ is 14, 2♦ is 15 … K♦ is 26.
• Hearts from Ace to 9 (9 cards): face value plus 26 – A♥ is 27 … 9♥ is 35.

The other cards (A♣, 2♣, 10♥ to K♥, all spades, jokers) are not used. Think of the three suits as one long ladder: clubs, then diamonds, then hearts, with each Ace following the King of the suit before.

Setup

1. Choose a dealer. The dealer shuffles the 33 cards and, without looking at them, puts 9 cards back in the box. Nobody knows which values are missing – that is part of the game.
2. The remaining 24 cards form a face-down draw pile in the middle.
3. Each player gets chips: 11 each with 3–5 players, 9 each with 6 players, 7 each with 7 players. Keep your chips hidden in your hand or under your palm – the others shouldn't know exactly how many you have.
4. The player to the dealer's left starts and turns the top card of the draw pile face up.

Playing a turn

When it's your turn, look at the face-up card in the middle and choose:

• "No thanks": put one chip from your supply on the card. Now it's the next player's turn (to the left) with the same card.
• Take it: take the card and all the chips on it. Lay the card face up in front of you and add the chips to your supply. Then you turn up the next card from the draw pile, and it's your turn again with the new card – you may pass it or take it too.

If you have no chips left, you can't say "No thanks" – you must take the card.

Keep the cards in front of you sorted by value so that everybody can see them.

Example: Anna turns up the J♦ (24). She pays a chip: "No thanks." Ben and Carla pay a chip each as well. Dan has the 10♦ (23) in front of him, so the 24 would join it and cost him nothing extra. He takes the J♦ and the 3 chips, then turns up the next card: 6♣ (6). Cheap – he takes it at once, even without chips, and turns up the next card.

End of the game and scoring

The game ends when the last card of the draw pile has been taken. Everybody works out their score:

1. Add up your cards – but a run of cards with consecutive values counts only as its lowest card. A run can continue from one suit to the next: K♣ (13) and A♦ (14) are consecutive, and so are K♦ (26) and A♥ (27).
2. Subtract your chips: each chip is worth one point in your favour.

The player with the lowest score wins. On a tie, the tied player with more chips wins; if that is equal too, they share the win.

Example: Dan ends with 6♣ (6), 8♣ 9♣ 10♣ (8, 9, 10), K♣ A♦ 2♦ (13, 14, 15), 10♦ J♦ (23, 24) and 7♥ (33), plus 6 chips. The runs count 8, 13 and 23, the single cards 6 and 33: 6 + 8 + 13 + 23 + 33 = 83, minus 6 chips = 77 points.

Players often play several games in a row and add up the scores; the lowest total wins.

Tips for beginners

• A card that extends one of your runs costs you nothing – or even saves points if it links two runs. Take such cards, but perhaps not at once: let the others pay a few chips first.
• Watch the other players' runs: a card that fits someone else's run is a card they'd like for free. Don't make it cheap for them.
• Chips are your lifeline. With no chips left you must take every card, however bad.
• Remember the 9 cards in the box: the card that would complete your run might never come.
• Early on, high cards are worth taking only with a good pile of chips on them.

Variants

• Open chips: everybody keeps their chips visible. The game becomes more calculable and less of a bluff.