I was fortunate enough to see the new 2nd edition of Wits And Wagers at GITHOT (Games In The Heart Of Texas). Now, I immediately requested (and received!) this game for Christmas 2006, and was impressed from top to bottom with the game. I figured the second edition would just bring new material to an already brilliant game.

Boy was I wrong.

Change #1: Instead of starting everyone with a stake, each player now gets two betting chips to bet as they like. The betting chips are worth 1 point each, and can be combined with chips earned by picking the winning answer. The good news is no matter how bad you do, you can still bet these chips on each question. They also removed the betting limits, which works with this change. Finally, the winning answer received an additional three chips along with any payoff the player wins.

Change #2: I very nearly broke my jaw when I saw the new play mat. Why? The payoffs changed! All payouts were raised one level from the original version -- they are now 2-1 up to 5-1, and 6-1 for the "All Over" option. (And this option was a winner on one of the questions we played during the competition game!)

These two changes, as a combination, improve the game in ways I didn't think possible. These changes give the game a much different, and far more competitive, feel to the game. There won't be any runaways like you can get under the original rules, and that's a good thing!

Congratulations to Dominic and the entire team for a great revamp of an already excellent game!

'Brian