Pit Card Game Review

The all-time favorite “card game frenzy” 3 to 8 players Ages 7and up

The tag line for this game is right. Pit is a frenzy of noise and action and fun. I bought this game as part of my husband’s birthday gift and it’s been a big hit with us. In full disclosure, we haven’t opened the second half of the cards as there are only four of us. This means that we haven’t played with the bear card yet.

The card game Pit has all the action of the game Spoons and Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza. It also has the interaction of Blind Poker and Cheat.

Object

The object of Pit is to be the first player to reach 500 points by cornering the market on a commodity in each round.

Pit Card Game Set Up

The first few times you play, you’ll want to remove the bull and bear cards to play the basic edition of Pit. Next, place the corner board in the middle of the playing area. Take a set of commodity set for each player and shuffle them together. The other sets get set aside. Then the deal deals out all the cards.

Playing Pit

When all the players have arranged their cards and are ready, the dealer announces, “The exchange is open.”

This is where the frenzy begins. Each player then tries to trade with other players for cards they don’t want for cards that complete their chosen commodity set. You can choose any number and any combination of cards to trade as long as you get the same amount of cards back. For example, you can trade two cattle for two cards. Or you could trade one gold and two silver cards for two cards. Trading is done by simply saying the number of cards you want to trade. “Two, two, two.”  You can change what you are collecting as you go, the only one who knows is you.

When a player collects all nine of their commodity cards, they hit the corner board and announce “Corner on Cattle.” Or whatever commodity they have. This ends the round.

Scoring

After a player has cornered the market on a commodity, they score the amount of points that that commodity is worth. For example, cattle are worth 75 points so if he cornered the market on cattle he scores 75 points. All other players score nothing.

The round is done and all the cards are shuffled together again and the deal job is passed to the left of the first dealer.

Winning Pit

The player who reaches 500 points first wins the game.

Pit Variations

To increase the difficulty of Pit, the bear and bull cards are added, shuffled in and dealt with the other cards. In this case, two players will be dealt 10 cards instead of 9. If you are a player with the extra card, you only need to match 9 of the cards to corner the market. The extra card is simply placed to the side.

The Bull Card

The Bull can either be a wild card and therefore used as any commodity. Or it can be a penalty card. If you use the Bull card as a wild card, you need to only have 8 matching commodities to corner the market and score the amount of the commodity. On the other hand, if you have all nine commodity cards and the bull card, you call “Double Bull Conner,” and you score double the amount of the commodity. However, if you hold the bull card in your hand when someone else corners the market, you lose 20 points.

The Bear Card

The bear card is only a penalty card. Not only can you not lay down a corner if you have the bare card in your hand, it will cost you 20 pints.

If a player has both the bull and the bear card in their hands when someone goes out, then that player loses 40 points for the round.

In Pit, negative scores are possible.

Silent Bidding

If the chaos of the normal bidding is too much, you can play with silent bidding. The game is played the same but instead of saying how many you want to trade, you hold up your hand showing the number of cards you wish to trade.

What We Like

We like noise, chaotic games so Pit fits right in with us. We like that it is simple—anyone can play really. There is no reading so even young kids can play. (I would remove the bull and bear cards for those games.)

What We Don`t Like

Well, I have to say that you do have to be in the mood for rowdy when you decide to play—this is not a game for when you have a headache. The only other thing I could say is that I wish we had bought the deluxe edition for two reasons. First, the edition we have is a standard card box and will wear out, be outgrown. Second, the deluxe edition comes with a bell. This should sound like a negative (adding noise) but I can see how it would enhance the game. Sometimes a player misses the fact that someone else cornered the market and the bell would fix that. Plus kids love to tap a bell!

A Game that Stands the Test of Time

Pit has been around since 1904 and it`s still one of the best-selling games. That alone should tell you that this simple game has something special to it. It is based on the Stock Market but you don`t need any knowledge of the world of finance to play. It is noise and quick and you need to play in an area where everybody has equal access to each other. For a get loud and fun game we recommend adding Pit to your Family Game Shelf and buying the deluxe edition.

To add Pit to your game shelf, shop here. Canadians can shop Amazon with either the Regular Edition or the Deluxe Edition.

To find other great games for your family read our game reviews, card games and dice games.

Rating:

Pros: anyone can play, easy, different levels,
Cons: noisy, needs the upgraded box
Mom: risk assessment, probability, trading skills