If you do, you will get 200 points (games are played to a thousand). You and the person across the table are working together to go out before your two opponents. Tichu is that relative rarity in the modern gaming world, a partner game. That one moment of looking at your new hand is a delight in and of itself. There is a real thrill in getting dealt out your cards (by NO means should you play the suggested “everyone takes their cards from the top of the deck one at a time” rule), picking them up, and giggling at all the aces and special cards you see (or, flipping the table over in rage at only having a 9 high). Should I keep that pair to make steps? Or should I make a full house out of it? Should I use those three aces as a triple, or split them into singles? And then, you see how long you can stick to your plan before deciding maybe making the fool’s play of keeping those aces as a triple actually IS a good idea based on how the current round is playing out.

The best climbing games front load the decision making where you are dealt your starting hand of cards (the entire deck is dealt out) and then must decide how to split it up. This is the first thing that makes Tichu shine. Tichu (and many others) has the twist that you can lead a round with more than just singles, you could also start with : Basically, I play a 2, the next player plays a 7, the third player passes, the fourth player plays a Jack, it comes back to me and play a king, followed by the second and fourth player passing which means I win the cards played for that round. But, for those times where you have exactly four players (four players? In THIS pandemic?) there honestly aren’t many games I’d rather play.Ĭlimbing card games are fairly common, and they all revolve around players taking turns playing successively larger cards until everyone has passed, at which point the player who played the highest card wins the trick and leads play for the next round. Today’s game, a partnership climbing card game is as simple as it gets components-wise: just a standard deck of cards (2-10, J, Q, K, Ace in four suits) with four special cards added to it.

Though my board game tastes definitely skew a certain direction, you don’t always have to hide a great game system behind a mountain of plastic to get my attention.

Tichu for two players