Near Enough — You do not have to be right. You have to back whoever is.

Everybody answers one question with a number, the guesses go up in a line, and you bet on the nearest without going over. 3 to 8 people, about 15 minutes.

Nobody can revise for it and nobody can look it up in forty-five seconds. Every question is a quantity you reason your way to from things you already have, and the deck refuses anything that would favour whoever grew up in the right country — no currency, no unit half the room would have to convert, nowhere on a map. Somebody two weeks into the job is exactly as well placed as somebody nine years in.

One person on every call is quicker with numbers than everybody else, and here it does not settle anything. You can hand your slip in blank, read what the room wrote, put your money on the one guess that looks sane and take the round outright — being right about your colleagues is worth exactly what being right about the world is worth.

Everybody writes at the same moment, so a table of eight costs no more time than a table of three. What the extra people buy is a longer line to read, and the forty seconds spent arguing about which number on it is mad is the part people stay for.

A round

Everybody writes a numberThe line goes upThe money goes downThe answer

On the sheet

+2Everyone who wrote it — their number is the winning one

+2Everyone who backed it — their money was on that position

+1A backer standing alone — nobody else was on it with them

0Everybody — the whole table let the clock run out

Also on

Games for a team of six Games for eight people at once Games that are best with five Games that fit in fifteen minutes Guessing games for a team

How to play Near Enough