With tactics cards added, the Schotten Totten becomes a steaming stew of strategic ruses and brilliant bluffing.
The final kind are discarded in exchange for a one-shot effect like letting you move one of your other cards between sequences. Others are played on stones and mess about with the scoring, such as changing the sequence to four cards rather than three. Some have wildcard-like effects in a sequence, like a fixed number that you can choose to represent any colour. However, Tactics cards can be very powerful.
You can choose to draw one of these in place of an ordinary card if you want, which makes it less likely you’ll complete the sequences you’re aiming for.
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But the full version of Schotten Totten uses a second deck of Tactics cards. This simple version of the game is fun enough by itself. The need to hold critical cards until late into the game results in some fantastic late swings and surprises. It’s up to you to make the balance and the slow drip-feed of suspense into the game often becomes thrilling. But doing so may force you into suboptimal plays elsewhere. Sometimes you want to hold cards for as long as possible to avoid giving important information to your opponent. The game brilliantly forces you into risk taking, and the strategic decision you make is how much risk to take.Īt the same time, every play also cranks the tension handle, escalating the excitement. You know what’s in your hand and what’s been played, so as the game unfolds you can make guesstimates as to how likely you or your opponent are to get the needed cards to win particular stones. Likewise, until your opponent has committed at least two cards to a stone, you won’t know what sequence they’re aiming for, or whether you can beat it.Įvery play thus catches you between two rock-hard uncertainties that you have to try and untangle with probabilities. When you start a sequence in front of a stone, you’ll rarely be certain that you’ll draw the cards to finish it. The genius of Schotten Totten lies in the fact that you lay a single card at a time, and you have a limited hand of cards. Win a majority of stones to claim victory. If the three cards on your side of the stone are a better combination than those on the opposing side, you win the stone. Unlike Poker, players must lay their cards one at a time on their side of a line of nine 'stone' tokens. A sequence of three numbers in the same colour is best, while a random pile of three cards is worst. Just like Poker, some of these sequences beat others. What you’re aiming for is to collect sets of three related cards: three of the same colour, the same numeric value, a sequence of three numbers and so on. Rather than the standard playing cards, the deck has cards in six colours, and each colour has cards with values from 1-9. Schotten Totten is based on the same premise as Poker, so if you’re familiar with that classic you’ll pick this up with ease. (Image credit: Iello) Schotten Totten review: How it plays
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