kellee's blog

Pit
Justin Perez, John, Rick Nelson, Kellee Santiago

Dramatic Elements
Each player in the game represents a trader trying to corner a specific part of the agricultural market (corn, wheat, barley, oats, etc.). It is supposed to be a simulation of the trading pits in the stock market.

Formal Elements
In the basic version of this game all players are dealt nine cards. For every player in the game there is a different type of card in play. The object of the game is to make trades with other players in order to collect all nine cards of any single suit to “corner” that market.
After the cards are dealt all players are free to trade 1-4 cards with any other player as quickly as possibly. When a player wants to make a trade he/she shouts out the number of cards they want to trade and anyone willing to match it accepts the offer. All the cards that a player trades have to be of the same type. There are no restrictions to the number or frequency of trades that any player makes.
Once a player has nine cards of the same type he/she rings a bell in the center of the table and the trading stops. Points are awarded based on which market is cornered. Then the cards are reshuffled and dealt again and the trading repeats. Once a player reaches a set goal he/she is the winner.

One variation of the game includes two new cards: the bull and the bear. Two players per hand would have ten instead of nine cards. Trading happens like the basic version, but at the end of each hand, the player holding the bear card subtracts 20 points from their total score. If the winner holds the bull card and nine cards of the same suit they receive double points, or they can hold the bull card and just collect eight cards of the same suit (no bonus). If the bull card is in someone’s hand other than the winner, they also subtract 20 points from their score.

Dynamic Elements
Each type of card has a different point value. Wheat was the highest at 100 points and oat was the lowest at 60. These varying point values caused players to not treat all types of cards the same, even though you had to collect nine cards to win, regardless of value. It was very common for everyone to pass off the oat cards to the other players, and to hold onto any wheat cards they had, at least early in each hand. The most common winners were corn and barley, which were in the middle of the point scale.
Introducing the bull/bear cards into the game also created a dynamic element. The group usually had a pretty good idea of who held the bear card at certain points in the game and would reject all trades from that person in order to avoid the bear. The bull card seemed to have little effect on the game. During all our play tests, a bull market double-points bonus never occurred.

Stories From Play
The simplicity of this game provided a very fast paced, fun playing experience. No single hand lasted longer than a couple minutes and entire games could be played in about 20 minutes. Because so many different hands are played, different strategies came up during each hand.
During a lot of the game, trading away four cards at once became a popular strategy. Getting rid of a suit which you already owned a large share of would seem like a bad strategy, but often if you got stuck trying to collect one thing and then traded it away you could completely change what your goal was for the hand and pick up a quick win. Big trades were so effective that some players would try and trade five or six cards at once (against the rules).
As mentioned before, during the bull/bear market version of the game, we often knew who had the bear card (usually because when someone got it they’d react with, “dammit, the bear again.”). During one particular hand, everyone knew John had the bear card and would not trade with him. In response, John had to promise not to give away the bear card in order to keep making trades.
The most interesting scenario came in our last hand when Rick was dealt exactly two of each of the five card types. The strategy he came up with was to simply refuse to trade with anyone, preventing anyone from every being able to win the game. The idea behind this was that the game would reach a point were everyone would have seven of one suit and two extra cards. Rick’s idea was that everyone’s two extra cards would be of the same suit and he could quickly collect them once everyone figured out that they needed to trade with him to win, and he would then have a complete set. Unfortunately, the strategy backfired because the first trade he made completed John’s set and John won the hand and the game.