Though I really enjoy the Face-2-Face games I’ve played to date (Moai, I’m the Boss, Boomtown), I’ve never really had the urge to try “Winner’s Circle”, a game about betting on horses. I’m not really the gambling sort, so it just seemed like a passé entry in the game company’s stable. Lo and behold, after only one game, I came away with a much better understanding and appreciation of the game, which can be played by 2-6 players.

Components: The game board, cardboard chits for betting, and the single die (which features three horse heads, a saddle, a horseshoe, and a jockey cap) are nothing special. The horses are a good quality molded plastic and quite nicely detailed (if you like painting miniatures, this could be cool). Some of the horse colors are easy to confuse if you’re not used to them. And the ‘tiles’ that name the some famous race horses in history are more like placards, made from a thick cardboard (think of the deal tiles in “I’m the Boss”). The only component that is sort of cheesy is the ‘money’, little cardboard rectangles with $500, $100, or $50 printed plainly on them. I’d have preferred poker chips or paper money, but it doesn’t really affect the game either way.

Theme: I find many of Reiner Knizia’s games that I’ve played to be very light thematically (a theme loosely disguising a game mechanic). This game is an exception. Knizia has taken the elements of horse racing and broken them down into several core elements, then seemingly created the game mechanics around them. The result is a game that is very nicely thematic without being technical.

Rules/Gameplay: The game is quite easy to learn, evidenced by the fact that three of us were taught (at one time) by word-of-mouth from an experienced player, and we all ’got it’ within 5-10 minutes. I didn’t see the rules sheet, so I can’t speculate about how well they’re presented in writing, but I can’t imagine there being much ambiguity to them.

The game consists of three races, each having seven colored horses. The colors of the horse correspond to their number and position (#1, the white horse, is at the front, #7, the black horse, is in the back, etc. The deck of tiles is shuffled and the top seven horse tiles are placed on the appropriate area for each horse. Each tile has the horse’s name, and four number values next to the four symbols on the die.
Each player looks over the horses’ statistics and, in turn order, place down one of their four betting chits (numbered 2, 1, 1, and 0) face down on a horse. If one of your chits is on a horse that finishes first, second, or third, you will be part of the payout (explained later). A ‘2’ chit gives you double that amount, and a ‘0’ will give you nothing.

Once the betting chits are all placed, the first player rolls the die and inspects the seven horse tiles to see how far each horse CAN move on that roll. The player then decides on ONE HORSE to move, and moves it accordingly. If it ends movement on a space that’s already occupied, the horse is placed at the first available space behind it. For instance, if Citation. on space 1, can move 5 (to space #6), but both space #6 and space #5 have horses on them already, then Citation would move to space #4. The tile for that horse is turned over, and the second player would then roll and move one of the remaining six horses. This would continue until all seven horses have been moved. The tiles would then be turned face-up and each horse could then be moved again. The first horse to reach space #18 (the halfway point) will get a $100 chit put onto it’s betting area that will be added to the payout if the horse finishes in the money. This process is repeated until three horses cross the finish line. The three winning horses and the last-place horse are all put into the payoff slots, and the payouts are awarded. The person with the most money after three races is the winner. New horses are placed out for each race.

The payout for each horse is based on where he finished AND how many people bet on it. If only one person bets on a winning horse, the payout is larger than if that horse has four people betting on it. (So throwing your ‘0’ bet onto a horse that many other players have put bets on will help to lessen their payout without costing you a dime). $100 is added to each persons payout if the horse was the first to reach the midpoint marker as described above. The payouts for the last race are doubled, so even players who are a ways behind might be able to catch up. If anyone has bet on the last place horse, they would have to pay $100 (or $200 if the ‘2’ chit was used).

Good Stuff: This game is an effective mix of strategy and luck. On each turn, you must decide whether to advance a horse that you’ve bet on, or sabotage a horse that you did not bet on. Rolling a horse head might enable you to move your horse six or seven spaces, but you could also move your opponent’s horse for 1 or 2 spaces and know that he cannot be moved again until all the other horses have been moved.

The payout system used (which, in essence, simulates handicapping) is quite unique, and adds strategy into the betting process. And the fact that each player may move one horse in each turn can lead to some interesting choices along the way, certainly a far cry from the mundane ritual roll-and-move that this could have become.

The fact that there are7 horses (a prime number) and the game plays from 2 to 6 players insure that the same person will not have the first choice of horse during the movement phase two consecutive times during the same race. As small of a detail that it may be, this makes the game extremely fair.

Bad stuff: The horses generally fall into one of three categories – favorites (decent mid-range numbers for all four possible die rolls), long-shots (very low horse-head values, high values on one or two other die rolls), and those who fall somewhere in between. While it’s fairly easy to sabotage a long shot, it’s not so easy to sabotage a favorite (perhaps rightfully so). This can lead to predictable betting and moving habits if the same group plays together often.

The game can get just a bit tedious after a while. Perhaps it’s because AP had set in, or just the eye strain of looking over the tiles and possibilities over and over again, but the game got a bit tiring. We played one complete game (three races), and I felt like it was time to move onto something else, even though I enjoyed the game immensely and look forward to playing it again.

Recommendations: This game is a lot of fun to play, and very different than many race games in two respects: its wonderfully unique payout system and the strategic movement sequence. These features combine to deliver a game that will appeal to many players across the spectrum. This could act as a great gateway game for someone who enjoys ‘playing the ponies’ now and then (I can think of a couple that might LOVE this game) because it is thematically sound. But it should also appeal to strategy games who are looking for something light with a unique twist.

I give it a rock-solid 7 rating. It’s very engaging, and therefore easy to ‘keep your head in the game’. I’ll probably put this on my want list because it is so different than most of the other games I own. And while it falls a bit short of being a great game, it is a very good one nonetheless.