Eat Ch

The deal

A standard 52-card deck is used. In standard three-player Eat Ch, the players are dealt 15 cards each. Six cards are placed face down in a triangle in the centre of the playing area. The final card, the 'beggar', is placed face down, away from the playing area.

The rules

None. Rules may be made up by the players as they see fit. The first player to get rid of all his/her cards is the winner.

Strategy

Novices to the game might suspect that an effective tactic would be to simply place all his/her cards down immediately. However, other players would generally not find this to be in the spirit of the game and would likely invent a new rule to void that players turn. Novel use of the cards and frequent references to the beggar are more likely to result in victory.

History of Eat Ch

Supposedly, the game was dreamt up when a player suggested a group played a game containing the letters C, H, E, A and T (referring to the game 'Cheat'). The idiosyncratic nature of the deal and lack of further rules stems from this early game. The game is thought to have originated in nothernmost Norway and many scholars of its early history have suggested that the bringing together of a cold desolate wilderness and almost psychotic loathing of the once popular 'Cheat' may have been responsible for the genesis of the game.

Eat Ch could be compared to the game of Mornington Crescent.

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