How to play Sixth Takes

Everybody chooses at the same moment

Ten cards each and four rows on the table. Everyone picks a card face down, they all turn over at once, and then they land in ascending order — each on the row whose last card is the nearest one below it.

So the row you were aiming at may be gone by the time your card gets there, taken by somebody's low card two places ahead of you in the queue. That is the game.

The sixth card takes the row

A row holds five. Play the sixth into it and you sweep all five into your own pile, and your card starts the row again.

Play a card lower than the end of every row and you take a row of your choosing — the cheapest one, if you have been counting.

Fewest bull heads wins

Every card carries bull heads and they score against you. Somebody reaching sixty-six ends it, and whoever has taken the fewest takes the game. A tie shares it, which is what the rulebook says and so is what this does.

The bots, and what they are not

They pick the cheapest card against the table as it stands. They never guess what you are about to do, never count what is left in the deck, and never eat a cheap row early to defuse a dangerous board. Good enough to punish a careless card and bad enough to lose to you.

Questions people ask

Does a bigger table make Sixth Takes take longer?

Barely. Everybody chooses at the same moment rather than in turn, so eight people play a hand in about the time three would. It is the game on this shelf that scales to a whole team.

How much is there to explain before the first hand?

One sentence: the sixth card into a row picks up the five underneath, and you want the fewest bull heads. Everything else people work out by watching one hand land.

Does anybody have to install anything to play Sixth Takes?

No. It runs in the browser everyone already has open. One person opens a room, reads out the six-character code or pastes the link into the channel, and everyone else is at the table in a couple of seconds.

Do we need accounts?

No. There is no sign-up, no password and no email address anywhere in the flow. You pick a name when you sit down, and that is the whole of it.

How many people can play Sixth Takes?

2 to 10 — best with five or six. A room seats up to 12.

How long does a game of Sixth Takes take?

About 20 minutes, which is the length of a coffee break rather than the length of a games night. Nobody is the host in the sense of holding the controls, so a round finishes whether or not everyone is still looking at it.

Does it work over a video call?

That is what it is for. The game is on the screen and the talking is on the call — nobody has to describe a board to anybody, and the parts that must stay private stay on the server rather than being read out.