Fritters’ Five Favorite Four-Player Card Game Tournament

Taking place on Saturday, August 4th at 9 PM, you can play through some of the best quick card games and get your share of $200 in prizes!  The rules for the tournament are below.  Please come to the tournament having either read the rules for the five games in the tournament or come out to a learning session of the games, held at South Austin Game Night each Tuesday until the convention.  (SAGN can be found at Rockin’ Tomato on S. Lamar from 6 to 11 PM on Tuesdays.)

Rules for the five games in the tournament are linked below:

• No Thanks!
• Category 5 / Slide 5
• Turn the Tide
• Thor / Botswana
• For Sale

Tournament Rules

• In games with multiple rounds the running score should be agreed upon each round and announced during each deal.
• You may have an alternate start/finish in place of you. Whoever plays in the finals will be given the prize. The incoming player gets the Tournament Points of the starting player.
• All tournament rulings will be done by one of the two Tournament Directors. That ruling is final, and will not be overturned by the other director.
• Tournament Points are awarded for placement in each game:
  • 1st – 5 points
  • 2nd – 3 points
  • 3rd – 2 points
  • 4th – 1 point

• The top four players (based on Tournament Points) after all five games are played will advance to the finals. If more than two players tie for any of the top four spots they will play one hand of Category 5 to break the tie. A tie for any of the top four spots between two players will be resolved by Tournament Points in games where the players played against each other. If still tied, the player with the most 1^st place (if identical, 2^nd, then 3^rd) finishes will be awarded the higher spot. If still tied we will flip a coin.
• Each of the four players in the finals will eliminate one of the five games, starting with the player in 4th place. This will have the player in 1st place choosing between two games. Their choice will be played in the same format as it was played in the preliminary rounds. The rankings in that game will determine 1st – 4th place. Ties will be resolved by the game’s tiebreaking system, and if there isn’t one or players are still tied, rankings from the preliminary rounds will break the tie.

 Category 5 / Slide 5

• Duration: Four rounds played over 35 minutes.
• First Player/Dealer: Irrelevant.
• Deck: Cards 1-44.
• Hidden Information: Cards in hand.
• Placement: Low score after four rounds takes 1st, second lowest score takes 2nd, etc.
• Tie Breaker: No tie breaker. If players finish the fourth round tied for a position they will split the relevant points (a tie for 2nd and 3rd will award each player 2.5 points).

No Thanks!

• Duration: Three rounds played over 35 minutes.
• First Player/Dealer: Before stripping the deck each round, deal one card to each player. High card deals and plays first, with the deal rotating left each hand.
• Deck: Starting with the full deck (3-35), remove and set aside the 10, 20, and 30 as well as six random card. This setup will be redone before each of the three rounds.
• Chips: 10 per player.
• Hidden Information: Chips in hand.
• Tie Breaker: No tie breaker. If players finish the fourth round tied for a position they will split the relevant points (a tie for 2nd and 3rd will award each player 2.5 points).

 Thor / Botswana

• Duration: 4 rounds played over 35 minutes.
• First Player/Dealer: Deal Offer cards face up to each player. High card goes first. In the case of a tie, deal additional cards to those players until somebody has the highest total. Dealer rotates to the left for each subsequent round.
• Deck: 25 God cards arranged in 5 stacks of 5 God cards each. 30 Offer cards (5 colors X 6 offering types) with 2 removed from play before each round begins. Deal out the cards evenly (7 per player)
• Hidden Information: Cards in hand only. God cards that players take are displayed openly on the table in front of each player.
• Tie Breaker: No tie breaker. If players finish the fourth round tied for a position they will split the relevant points (a tie for 2nd and 3rd will award each player 2.5 points).

 For Sale!

• Duration: 1 round played over 15 minutes.
• Deck: two decks of 28 cards after randomly discarding 2 from each deck.
• Money: $18,000 coins per player (14 $1k, 2 $2k).
• Hidden Information: Cards and money.
• First Player/Dealer: To begin the first hand, deal each player a face up property card. Bidding on these properties begins with the player with the highest valued property in front of him and proceeds to the left. Winner of each bid is the first bidder in the next round.
• Paying Bids: Winner pays full bid. All others pay half (rounded up) to the bank.
• Tie Breaker: Largest amount in coins wins a tie break. Second tie break is highest valued bank note. If identical, look at second highest bank note, etc.

 Turn the Tide / Zum Kuckuck!

• Duration: 1 game (4 rounds) played over 30 minutes.
• Deck: Of the 60 cards, randomly remove 12 cards from the game at the start of the 1^stround ONLY. Deal the cards evenly (12 per player). All four rounds are played, so every player will play each of the four hands. Lowest tide card showing when a round ends gets an extra point.
• Life Buoys / Cockatoos: 24 to be distributed according to the hands dealt.
• Hidden Information: Cards only.
• First Player/Dealer: Irrelevant
• Tie Breaker: Compare scores from all four rounds. Highest low score on the four rounds played (4,3,3,1 beats 5,4,2,0)