Hold My Beer

We found uncontested positions to not be very interesting to play.

--Sep2023-- This is quite lovely. Approachable, sensible, clever. Would be happy to play. --Apr2025-- (Look for the plays under Dino Trix.)

DJ's latest trick-taker is my favourite of his I've tried so far. It's played with a tarot deck and you have to predict whether you'll finish with 1st, 2nd or 3rd most points each round. Since those bids are made simultaneously you can end up with fun clashes and you get an extra reward for messing up an opponent's clashing bid.

Great game, deriving from the landscape of austraian tarock but in its completely own innovative way. For instance the "Birds" (3 lowest trump) here function to give you game pts (if you win someone else's), and an ability to swap a card with the talon (if you win with one). The blind auction for what place you'll be in (1/2/3) works really well too, giving an anti-Mittlere type feel together with each hand being unique, together with information about each other's hands. Nothing felt gimmicky or pasted on, all very smooth. Nice job!

I'm the designer here so beware of bias. Hold My Beer packs a good amount of tension into the bidding process while also maintaining a light feel. I think there is slightly more control here with 3p than what is found in the 4p sister game Oopsie. The special powers add just enough spice to everything to work well together. The only thing keeping it from a 10 for me is not finding a clean solution to ties in final scores. A shared victory is possible and I'm not real crazy about that.