Fifty Fifty

The Game 

Fifty Fifty is a card game in which players take turns playing cards to a central row. Sometimes when you do not have the right card or when you decide not to play the right card, you will be forced to take cards from the row as a penalty. The goal of the game is to have the least penalty when the deck runs out. 

The cards in the game are numbered 1 to 100, plus there are some fox cards. A third of the numbered cards are purple, the rest orange. The central row must be in ascending order. This is the golden rule. When you play a card, you can only add it to the end. If the card you play has a number lower than the last card, you would be breaking the golden rule. Thus you must remove cards from the end of the row until your card play becomes valid. This can mean removing the whole row if your card is lower than all the cards in the row. Cards being removed are your penalty. You place them in your personal penalty pile. They don’t go to your hand. Now if you are only removing one card from the end, and it is orange, you don’t take the penalty. You give that removed card to the previous player (who has just played that card), and you also give him a card from your penalty pile. What this means is it is always a little risky to play an orange card if it is much larger than the current last card. The next player may force you to take it as a penalty AND give you one more penalty card.

The fox cards are used for passing. When you play a fox (it has no number), you don’t need to take any penalty. The next player may play a number card and take the fox as a penalty, and he may need to take more numbered cards as penalty too, following the golden rule. Alternatively, the next player may decide to play a fox too, avoiding the penalty. 

There is a special "Fifty" rule. When another player plays a number card and you have a number card with a difference of exactly 50, you may declare “Fifty” to interrupt play. Everyone takes turns playing foxes, and the first person unable to do so is forced to take the whole row and all foxes played. 

You have a hand size of five. On your turn you play a card and then draw a card. The game is played until the deck runs out. Then some specific rules apply for game end, which I find a little complicated. Generally you don’t want to have any more foxes in hand because you’d automatically lose. Also once anyone runs out of cards, the player with the lowest card in hand must take the central row and everyone’s hand cards. After all is done, the player with the least penalty wins. 

The Play

So far I have only played two-player games against Chen Rui. The rules aren’t complex, but I have difficulty working out the strategy. I keep losing, often by a huge margin, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. My first instinct is when I can play a card which won’t give me any penalty, I should play it. If I have several such cards, I should play the lowest among them, so that on the following turns I will still have more options available. However I find this might not be the best way to play. This is a game about hand management. You will sooner or later take some cards. It is about how to minimise cards you take in the long term. 

One thing I did was this. When I was almost out of cards which I could play that would not lead to penalty, instead of just reactively delaying the pain for as long as I could, I played a card which made me take many of the cards but set the card row to a situation which was helpful to me. The reason I did this was I felt that had I dragged on, I would be taking all those cards anyway. So I might as well take them now but position myself better. If I had a series of cards which were close, I would play the lowest card. In a 2-player game, the card my opponent played would probably be somewhat larger, and I would then be able to play a card between the last two cards. If her card was orange, I would force her to take it as a penalty and also take one penalty card from me. This was one tactic I worked out. I'm not sure it's effective, but that's the best I could come up with. Also this might not work for 3 or more players. The tactics may be different when the number of players is different. 

The Thoughts

I don't really understand the game yet, so I have no concrete conclusion. I understand the rules, I don't understand the strategy. I'm not sure whether this is a luck-heavy game, or there are tactics that can be used to mitigate luck. At the moment, the game is still a curiosity to me. Fifty Fifty has similarities to 6 Nimmt (Category 5 / 6 Takes) and Mon. I suspect it works better with more players. I am guessing that the luck element is high, and there is only a little you can do to manage luck. Deciding when and whether to call "Fifty" and also when to use a fox can have big implications. You may want to stock up on foxes, and find a good time to unleash them. However having more foxes also means you have fewer numbered cards, and thus fewer options. I should try this again with more players, and see how the play experience changes.