Potato Man

Potato Man is a trick-taking game in which even the smallest potatoes can win big.

Once the cards have been dealt, each player plays one card to the centre of the table to form the “trick” but each of the four colours can only be played once per trick. The player who plays the highest card wins the trick except that the three lowest cards in the game (1, 2, 3 in yellow) win the trick if one of the three highest cards (16, 17, 18 in red) has been played.

Each colour has its own small pile of point cards, and when a player wins a trick, they take a point card in the same colour. Red, for example, has the highest cards (cards 5-18, compared with yellow 1-13) but the lowest-value point cards. Once three tricks have been taken with the same colour, the point cards in that colour are used up, and players take golden “joker” point cards, which are worth the most points. It can therefore pay to hold back high cards in a colour that wins often in order to maximise your points but the round ends as soon as a player cannot play a card.

Players add up their points and start a new round, and the game lasts as many rounds as there are players. At the end, the player with the most points wins.