12 chip trick and the magic of microgames
The way that a minimal ruleset can cascade into a deep decision space is one of the genuinely miraculous features of the hobby. Here's the latest example (that I have played)
I don’t really know how many of my readers are ‘into’ games. But I am aware that in my game coverage I have discussed titles which are not accessible to all, either for reasons of price, complexity or both. So this week I am talking about a game which you could literally all be playing within 10 minutes of reading this.
12 chip trick is part of a genre of mainly card-based games called micro-games. These are fast-playing games with few rules, and usually minimal components- perhaps the best-known and justifiably best-regarded is Love Letter, Seiji Kanai’s wonderful little gem of deduction and elimination.
12 chip tricks is, you will be amazed to hear, played with 12 poker chips (but playing cards would also work fine), numbered 1-12. The chips are distributed between 2-4 players, and each play of the game takes place over a number of ‘tricks’.
Trick-taking is another genre of game which is enjoying huge popularity. There are a number of great descriptions of what it means out there, but for most people in my generation/ culture ‘it’s like whist’ does the trick as well as any. One person plays a chip, and the others then have to play chips (there are no suits, or trumps). The person who plays the highest chip then picks one up, followed by the other players in clockwise order. The first chip taken is placed face up and is out of the game. Then the ‘winning’ player starts the next trick. The game (strictly, the round) ends when a player should start a trick but has no chips in their hand available.
There are three hooks that make this special:
the person who has the highest score under 21 wins. This means that taking lower chips is advantageous
the chips are either blue (value 1-3 and 10-12) or red (value 4-9). When a red tile is played, the ‘winner’ of the trick has to take a red tile. They frequently do not want to.
Unplayed chips in your hand count towards your score at the end.
So it’s just a game of having the lowest chips, right? Well, kind of, but having a high chip can give you control of who gets what, so if you play the 12 on the last round, you can easily end up with something much smaller, while one of your opponents gets 12 unwanted points.
So when you are presented with a trick of this game, however simple it is, you are confronted with surprising number of permutations. If you play a low-ish red, you could potentially get rid of it, but the 1-3 tiles are always out there, so you might win and have to take it permanently. Conversely, the people with the very low tiles might save them to avoid the 8 and 9 tile, which can cripple your chances of coming in under 21. So you look at each other, trying to read each others’ intentions and guess each others’ hands. And you marvel at the fact that a game that takes 2 minutes to explain is tying your brain in a tangle of knots. It’s tense, fast and I am absolutely awful at it.
It’s not perfect- there’s no doubt that a lucky draw can massively advantage you, but a play takes minutes, and officially, you play rounds of a single game until one player has won three rounds. Or, in my case, until you are so filled with despair at my ineptitude that I give up.
It’s also super accessible. The rules are here, and you can use playing cards from two different decks to stand in for the chips (what do you mean, you only have one deck of cards? Not even an old one with half the cards missing?). Or you can go to Board Game Arena, where it is free to play. Drop me a message (maxdavie) and I will set us up a virtual table.
What’s not to like?
Sorry it’s been a while- very intense real life right now. Hopefully a really interesting book next week that I can’t quite work out.