Pit

Are you familiar with Pit? It is a fast-paced card trading game that my family, after learning from farmers, played growing up. It is for four to nine players; it can theoretically be played with three, but isn’t as fun that way. It uses its own cards, made up of different crops, like wheat, corn, barley, etc. You use as many crops as there are players. Each crop has a point value. The object is to gain a monopoly of a crop. It’s supposed to be like trading in some farmer stock market or something.

There are nine cards of each crop. At the beginning of each round, all the cards are dealt, and when the dealer rings the bell, all the players begin trading cards simultaneously. If you’re doing it right, pandemonium will ensue. You can trade as many cards as you’d like at a time, but- and this is important- they have to all be the same crop. You can’t make a trade combining a corn and a wheat or anything like that. A trade is done by swapping the same amount of cards with any other player. The trades are hidden, so you don’t know what crop you’re getting until the deal’s complete. Once you figure out what cards you want to trade, you yell out the number of cards in the trade and/or hold them out face down. You don’t really have to yell; of course you don’t really have to win, either. Once you and anybody else are in agreement on the number of cards to trade, the trade can be made. Since both of your hands will have cards in them, you just sort of set the cards in front of each other and then pick up your new ones- and then bitch about the fact that you just gave each other the same thing or whatever. You can totally refuse to trade with any player at any time as well. You have to adapt your strategy to match the number of cards other people are trading. Also, especially at the beginning of a round, if you notice everyone keeps giving you the same crop, it might be smart to start collecting that crop. The faster you can trade, the better your odds become of winning.

Once you get all nine of a crop, ring the bell, and if you are the first one to do so, you get the amount of points shown on that crop. I call ringing the bell “going out,” even though I don’t know what that means exactly. After each round, the cards pass clockwise to the next dealer and a new round begins. The first player to 500, or 300 if you want to play a shorter game, wins. You can either designate a scorekeeper or pass out sticky notes and have each player keep track of their own score.

That’s the gist of the game, but there are two other cards I haven’t told you about, which are the bear and the bull. Both of these cards can be traded in with a crop. The bear is always bad. Get rid of it as soon as you get it. You can’t even ring the bell if the bear is in your possession even if you have a monopoly of a crop. The bull, on the other hand, acts like a wild card, and can be used as a substitute for a crop, so you can ring the bell if you have eight of a crop and a bull. However if another player goes out, you lose 20 points if you have the bear or the bull (or 40 points if you have both). I usually hold onto the bull at the start of a round but if I feel like somebody is about to win and I’m not even close I’ll get rid of it.

Because of the bear and the bull, the two players after the dealer will have an extra card; in other words ten, whereas the other players will have nine cards so the same number as there are in a monopoly. This is important to remember because if you are one of those two players with an extra card in the round it means even if you have a monopoly of a crop, one of your cards won’t match. However, if you have the extra card and manage to collect all nine of a crop and the bull, you get double the points. You can go out with eight of a crop, the bull and one of another crop (just not the bear.)

Some people have trouble remembering the difference between the bear and the bull and I always wonder how they react if they were confronted with them in real life. You probably should have studied harder in kindergarten. Maybe think of it like you could raise crops and cattle but you’re never going to keep a bear around- unless you’re a gypsy I suppose.

That’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s one of those games that should become apparent and obvious once it starts. Or scare you to death- one of the two. The main thing to remember is you can’t mix crops on a trade. Also, don’t mistake corn for coffee or barley with the bear or bull. Also, when someone rings the bell, make sure they double-check their cards and prove they’ve won before anyone else shows theirs because if they fucked up play immediately continues as if the bell hadn't rung.