Description

Rules available at https://www.amigo-spiele.de/content/download.php?group=rule&file=01806-GB-AmigoRule.pdf&title=01806-GB-AmigoRule.pdf

NB: This game is the precursor to Scout.

Krass Kariert / Checkered Combos is a 30 minute light card game for 3-5 players where players are trying to get rid of all the cards in the spirit of Hong Kong bridge / Choh Dai Ti. Players get dealt a hand of 10 cards each which they cannot rearrange. Instead, they are allowed to play a series of cards each turn that must be higher than the preceding card(s) played, using standard poker poker rules. If a player chooses not to play a set of cards or is unable to, the player has to take 1 of the 2 face up reserve cards in front of him/her and gets to place it in any location in his/her hand. If a player has no reserve cards left or is the last player holding cards in any given round, that player will have to turn in 1 of the 2 “life” chips. The game ends when any player is required to turn in a chip but has none left.

Krass Kariert / Checkered Combos plays like the shorter, meaner, more lazy brother of Choh Tai Di. Not only does the inability to swop cards and limit of playing 1 set of cards per turn make the game harder to play, but the presence of wild, Uno-style draw 3, and immediately ending a turn special cards creates a quick flow to each round..

The best part of Krass Kariert / Checkered Combos is figuring out the order of cards to use each turn so that other cards can link up to form straights or doubles and triples.

The worst part of Krass Kariert / Checkered Combos is not being to play the huge combos you’ve created when the previous players play cards which trump your straight or double by 1 or 2 numbers. There is also the luck of the draw that can create combotastic hands (or the converse) without any additional work.

Alternatives:

Other light climbing or trick taking games like Linko / Abluxxen, Ohanami, Texas Showdown, Sticheln, Skull King, Wizard are awesome alternatives that play in the same amount of time and are good at varying player counts. Wind the Film and Luxor are excellent choices for a longer and more strategic game with the same fixed hand mechanism.

Card Sizes

54 59x92mm cards