Game 43: Dutch

 As you know if you've been reading this blog, I'm not counting all the card games we play with a standard deck - only our top 5 or 10 total (which seems fair since we have hundreds of decks of cards on our shelves).  Dutch has recently become one of those favorite games.  Unlike Pedro or Scribbage, this is not one that we've been playing for years and years.  This is a game our son Jacob taught us about a year ago after having learned it while on a missions trip to Thailand.  We hear the kids he worked with in Thailand are absolute rock stars at this game.  It took me quite a few hands to pick up some good strategy.
Each player is dealt 4 cards to begin with.  These cards are set out in front of you, and you may look at two of them.  The goal is to have the lowest point total at the end of the game.  On your turn you draw a card, and you may replace one of the face-down cards with the card you have drawn - discarding the card you've replaced.  You may draw from the pile or from the discards.  If someone discards a card that numerically matches one you have in front of you, you may discard your matching card, thus decreasing the amount of cards you have.  (If you make a mistake, thinking you have a match but then it turns out it isn't, you have to draw another card and increase the number of cards in front of you by one, so you really want to keep track of your cards!)

 A few cards have special properties.  If you discard a queen, you may look at any face-down card on the table (yours or someone else's).  If you discard a jack, you may switch two cards (between yourself and another player or between two other players - or just two cards in front of you).  The black kings are worth their face value of 13, but red kings are worth 0.  The round ends when a player, thinking he has and can keep the lowest point total, calls "Dutch!"  The other players all get one more draw, but the hand of the person calling Dutch is frozen, so he can't discard his card even if it matches a discard, and no one can look at his card, switch his card, etc.  If the person who called "Dutch" does have the lowest total, that is his score for the round.  If he doesn't have the lowest total, then he has to double his points.
Yesterday I posted about the game Final Touch, which is the game we played just before this one.  During Final Touch you can carry on a conversation very easily.  During this game you need to stay very focused!  Dutch is definitely in our Card Top Ten, no question.

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