Spoons
From Free net encyclopedia
Pearle (Talk | contribs)
Changing {{attention}} to {{cleanup-date|December 2005}}
Next diff →
Current revision
Template:Wikify-date
- For other uses, see Spoons (disambiguation).
Spoons is a children's card-matching and bluffing game also enjoyed by adults. Spoons is a fast-action, knuckle-punishing game requiring the players to pay attention to two things at once.
Another version of this game is Pig, with the same gameplay but no spoons required.
Contents |
Playing the game
Object:
Get four of a kind and grab a spoon! Once a spoon is grabbed, everybody grabs for the rest. Don't be the one left without a spoon!
Setup:
In each game, you will use one fewer spoon than the number of players. For example, if there are six players, you will use all five spoons (For 3 to 6 Players * Ages 7 & Up). Arrange the designated number of spoons in the center of the table so they will be easy for all players to grab, and place the others back up, out of play. Also, assign one person to be "Trash" and the other to be the dealer. The person in charge of the trash pile will be the last person to receive cards being passed around the circle, and place them into a "trash pile". The dealer will start the game by picking up one card from the deck and passing it or a card from his/her hand on.
Play:
The dealer starts the game dealing out four cards to each player, then picking up a card from the deck and deciding whether to keep the card or not. This is usually decided by seeing if it matches any cards in their hand (trying to create a set of four cards). The dealer then passes the card that is discarded on to the next player. The game play can go either way around a circle, depending on which side of the dealer the "Trash" is sitting on. Each player discards a card face down to player on their left. Each player looks at that card and keeps and discards it or another to the person on the left. Players may not keep more than four cards in a hand. The dealer takes cards from the remainder of the deck. When these are used s/he takes one card at a time from the face down stack that has been passed to him/her from the person on his right or left (the "Trash").
This goes on, often at ever-increasing speed, until a player gets four of a kind (four Kings, four twos etc.) Immediately after that player has discarded (and has only four cards) they are entitled to grab a spoon. Then the fun begins. As soon as one player has grabbed a spoon, all of the others should instantly try to do the same. Whomever does not get a spoon loses that hand.
Rules
If someone is first to touch a spoon, and it turns out that at that time no one actually has four of a kind, then the first toucher loses the hand. Therefore, someone believing that someone else has four of a kind does not give the believer the right to grab a spoon, because one must have four of a kind to be the first to grab a spoon. Falsely obtaining a spoon results in a point for the person who initiated the grabbing of the spoons.
In some versions, you can still lose the spoon even when it's in your hand. Most of the time you have to touch it to your chest, nose, or some other body part.
Also, grabbing the spoon and running from the table isn't allowed. However, you can move around the table if you are pulling the spoon from someone, as long as you are in arm's length of everyone at the table.
Other Rules
In some instances of this game, the dealer will tell the rest of the players the bottom 1-4 cards in the deck, so they will know that if they try to collect that number, then the rest of their cards will be at the bottom of the deck. If players have cards that they wish to discard after hearing the bottom cards, they may send them straight to the "trash" pile.
When playing somewhere where spoons are not obtainable, play is possible with other similar objects, such as pencils, pens, glasses, cups, coins, etc. that are available.
It is possible to play this game with nothing but a deck of cards, by instead sticking out your tongue when you have obtained 4 cards. The last person to notice and stick out their own tongue is the loser of that round.
Scoring
Scoring: The loser has a letter in the word "s-p-o-o-n-s" counted against them. That is, the first loss is "s", the second is "p", etc. When a player has accumulated all six letters in "spoons", they drop out of the game. At that time, the number of spoons is reduced by one. The game continues until only the winner is left.
Strategy/bluffing
Bluffing is encouraged, as you can reach for a spoon at any time as long as the spoon is not actually touched. This can have a distracting effect on one's opponents, or even cause someone to improperly grab a spoon prematurely.
One can also play without ever looking at the cards at all. Just pass the discards from right to left, keeping both eyes on the spoons. Often times players, while doing this strategy, will look at the cards at the beginning to try to close out as many pairs as possible by keeping as many different cards as possible.
Because players are focused on their own hand, when you get four of a kind, surreptitiously nab a spoon. The card-passing may continue for several seconds while you watch the fun.
Instead of grabbing a spoon, it's also possible to play this game by simply touching your nose and holding your finger there when you get four of a kind. This method has the advantage of being more discreet than picking up a noisy spoon, so the losing player may not have noticed that the others have a finger on their noses. This concentrates more on attention than speed. This method also prevents any player from having an advantage by sitting closer to the spoons.