Game: Dutch Blitz

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Meat — 2008-11-18T03:20:36+00:00

Box Front - 1973 "long box" edition

Thread: Re: Women vs Men

candoo — 2008-09-03T22:50:49+00:00

Yes, my female gaming friends are very fast at this. Also, in Turbo Taxi, they hand my a** to me.

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swuyau — 2008-05-26T08:20:25+00:00

Cards

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swuyau — 2008-05-26T08:19:52+00:00

Cover

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Schaumy81 — 2008-04-30T15:58:45+00:00

A key spot is thwarted once again!

Thread: Dutch Blitz - Mulligan Rule

loomis — 2008-03-30T03:35:15+00:00

The only problem with Dutch Blitz is that you can sometimes get stuck with poor starting cards.

Thus, we've implemented a mulligan rule: if you get a bad start you can mulligan, reshuffle, and deal yourself a new hand, only now you deal yourself ELEVEN cards in your blitz pile.

Mulligan again, and you start with twelve cards, and soforth.

This rule works really well here with many different players.

Thread: Re: The Ultimate Filler From My Childhood

skuppage — 2008-03-25T18:18:12+00:00

A Strange Aeon wrote:

It has that strange intersected popularity with total non-gamers and hardcore gamers alike that always makes me say "Wait, you've heard of this game before?"

I was quite surprised to find the Kenyan mechanics that I work with at the hangar playing Dutch Blitz during their breaks. Apparently one of them picked it up when he went to the states for training. I can hold my own against them, but they're pretty good.

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kyrasantae — 2008-02-25T02:38:17+00:00

My custom Dutch Blitz boxes, with salvaged remains of original box

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Molik — 2007-11-29T10:41:00+00:00

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loomis — 2007-11-22T02:48:09+00:00

A case of frustrating fun

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gwen — 2007-10-24T14:29:38+00:00

Bibi Blocksberg Edition

Thread: New players vs. old hands

Shalmar — 2007-10-07T08:33:23+00:00

One of my most memorable sessions of this game illustrates the weakness that I find in it: people who have played a lot have a huge advantage making it hard for rookies to really get into it.

In this session we were using a house-rule where the leading player had to add an extra card to their blitz pile for every full 10 points they were ahead of the second-placed player, and the last-placed player removed one for every 10 points they were behind. (The blitz pile is usually 10 cards, and is the pile of cards that you need to play out in order to go out).

We were playing with 4 people, Angie (who, like me, grew up playing it), Tim who had played for a number of times, Derrick who had only played it once or twice ever before, and me. Angie and I had played often and are very even, often trading wins back and forth (and are both generally competitively-natured).

I started off well, with a streak of lucky setups allowing me to blitz early and build a serious lead. Derrick quickly realized that he would not be competitive but was a very good sport and he abandoned playing his wood pile at all, concentrating only on playing his blitz pile. In several of the rounds he didn't manage to play a single card.

By the last round I was up 30 points ahead of Angie (a rare event), with Tim hovering around zero and Derrick diving deeply into the negatives. I was playing 13 cards on my blitz pile, and Derrick had only 1. (He only needed to play one card to go out). He never did manage to play that card. Angie blitzed quickly hoping to catch me in the negatives, but I had played just enough cards to squeak over the magical 100 ending a game that went on to hold mythic status in my friend group.

Thread: Re: Session Report

Shalmar — 2007-10-07T07:53:11+00:00

Not sure that it's so clear. I keep hearing this, but I've seen many good and bad players of both genders. I think that people who have previously played it often will basically always win irregardless of gender.

Thread: Re: The Ultimate Filler From My Childhood

Ninjabob — 2007-09-22T03:54:28+00:00

I also played this growing up and we called it "Pounce!"

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fehrmeister — 2007-05-16T04:31:50+00:00

Some Well-Used Cards Ready For Sorting

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fehrmeister — 2007-05-02T03:47:21+00:00

The Blitz Pile

Thread: Re: The Ultimate Filler From My Childhood

davido — 2007-05-01T22:58:41+00:00

I know this (or something similar) as "Canfield" that I played w/ some family friends. And yes, it *is* that intense

(for those tracing history/etymology, they're from North/Central California)

Thread: Re: The Ultimate Filler From My Childhood

A Strange Aeon — 2007-05-01T21:58:09+00:00

Recently a non-gamer friend of mine was completely unimpressed with Dutch Blitz when he saw my group playing it. It turns out he grew up in Palmyra, PA, and had played the game since he was a kid, so it was his Clue, Jr. or whatever. It still boggles my mind that a game like this has such old roots. It has that strange intersected popularity with total non-gamers and hardcore gamers alike that always makes me say "Wait, you've heard of this game before?"

Your review is spot on--I think it's one of the most intense games I've ever played. It's at least the game most likely to have four people flipping cards silently, muttering curse words under their breath as they appear to be playing solitaire, before suddenly erupting into violent card slapping and shouting those curse words at other players!

You play to 200?? Jeez, we usually just go to 75. I really dig your house-rules, especially the re-shuffle if the cards add up to over 25. You can get really screwed by having a bunch of 9's and 10's at the beginning.

Thread: The Ultimate Filler From My Childhood

fehrmeister — 2007-05-01T20:26:24+00:00

Overview: Dutch Blitz is a real-time card game accommodating up to 4 players that was allegedly invented by a German immigrant from Pennsylvania Dutch country. The word "Blitz" of course means "Lightning", which is an apt description for the quickness of mind and hand needed to be successful at this game. It is very similar to the game of Nertz, which can be played with an ordinary deck of playing cards. In 1988, a German publisher created its own version of the game called "Ligretto". While I have not personally played this version, my understanding is that it is the same game but allows for more players.

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Components (Cards): The game consists of 4 sets of 40 cards with each set having a different card back. In the standard Dutch Blitz pack the 4 card backs are blue plows, yellow buckets, red buggies, and green pumps - all decidedly Amish looking implements. The 40 cards in each set are made up of 4 sets of 10 cards numbered on the front from 1 through 10 with each set of 10 a different color: green, yellow, blue, and red (but with no direct relationship to the colors on the back of the cards). So if I'm the player with the set of cards with the red buggy on the back, I'll have 10 yellow cards numbered 1 through 10, 10 red cards numbered 1 through 10, 10 blue cards numbered 1 through 10, and 10 green cards numbered 1 through 10. The cards themselves are not made of very sturdy cardstock - especially for a game that costs this much and that takes as much abuse as it's bound to. I've seen some people laminate their cards, but that can make the deck of cards hard to handle, and can weaken one's grip and ability to quickly grab and place a card.

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The only other item you might be able to include in a list of components for this game is the plastic container for the cards, which prominently features a poem written with what I imagine is a Pennsylvania Dutch accent describing this "vonderful, goot game". It was an embarrassing tradition in our family to read this before each play with a new set of people, thinking it would create a lot of laughs.

Setup: Each player deals 10 cards facedown into a pile in front of them from their set of 40 (hopefully just shuffled) cards, and then flips over the top card face-up on top of the pile. This is the all-important "Blitz" pile. The goal of the game is to be the first player to play all of the cards from this pile into the general play area in the middle of the table, while playing as many of their other cards as possible at the same time. Beside this pile, each player takes the next 3 cards their deck and places them face-up side by side beside the pile of 10 cards. The rest of the cards in the deck are taken in hand and the round is ready to start.

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Rules:The rules of the game are relatively simple. Cards are played by creating and building on piles of cards in the middle of the play area between the players, and shared by everyone. Each of these piles starts as a single card with the number "1" on it, and then is built into a run of cards from "1" to "10", all in the same color (on the front of the card). Since each player has a deck containing four sets of cards from 1 to 10, this means that the most number of piles that can be created is 16 (it always seemed like a lot more to me though). Every player is adding cards to these piles at the same time - there are no "turns" to wait for. Once a "10" card is placed on a pile, that stack of 10 cards is then flipped face-down to make it clear that nothing further can be placed on it.

There are two ways to play a card from your set of cards. The first is to take the top card from your "Blitz Pile" and place it when you see a place where it will fit. You can also place a card from the set of 3 face-up cards beside the "Blitz Pile", and when one of these is placed, you can take the top card from the "Blitz Pile" and place it face-up in the spot vacated by it, and then flip over the next card on the top of the "Blitz Pile". This basically makes them an extension of the "Blitz Pile".

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The other way to play a card involves the rest of the deck of cards in your hand. Playing them involves a rather unique mechanic: you hold the deck with all of the cards face-down, count off 3 cards from the top of your deck, flip them over and place them in another pile in front of you so that they are face-up, and then see if you can play the top card from this pile. If you can play it, you can also play the card below it if it can be played as well. Otherwise, you take the next 3 face-down cards in your hand and flip them onto your pile in the same way, until you've gone through your whole hand. At this point, you take the whole pile of face-up cards, flip them over, and start the whole process again, constantly looking for a place to play the top card in your pile. Eventually, the deck of cards in your hand will get smaller, but I've never actually seen someone get rid of everything in their hand.

These two ways of playing cards must be managed simultaneously, meaning that a player is usually fully engaged and even struggling to keep up with what else is going on, constantly scanning the play area for where he can play one of several cards he's looking out for. Downtime is never an issue. Growing up in a large family, we would usually play with up to 8 people at once, by dividing each player's hand between 2 partners. Each partner had a distinct job: one would watch out for the “Blitz Pile” (and the 3 cards beside it) and the other partner would take care of flipping the rest of the deck. This game works very well this way, although there can be a little downtime for the "Blitz Pile" watcher this way.

Advanced players can also play with the optional "stacking" rule, which makes the rounds slightly quicker and adds more options on where to place cards. Basically it allows a player to take a card from their "Blitz Pile" or one of the 3 stacks next to it, and play it on top of another of those 3 cards if it's value is one less than the card played on, and if it is an alternating color (yellow can be played on green or vise versa, and red can be played on blue or vise versa). The catch is that as the game progresses, the cards at the bottom of these 3 stacks cannot be played until the cards on top of them are played first. Someone who can "stack" successfully often has a serious advantage in getting rid of their "Blitz Pile" first. We never played using this rule with new players, but it certainly adds a challenge when playing against experienced ones.

It's obviously better to have low cards show up on top of your “Blitz Pile” and in your hand, as they can usually be more easily placed. In fact, it's difficult enough to play the higher cards in the early stages of the game that if the initial set of 3 cards beside a "Blitz Pile" total up to a value of 25 or more, we played that you can reshuffle the deck and redeal. Any "1" cards can be played immediately to the play area to start a new pile.

End of the round and scoring: The first person to place all of the cards in their "Blitz Pile" into the playing area shouts out "Blitz!", and the round stops immediately. Cheaters who quickly slapped a card down after this shout are reprimanded. Then everyone counts the number of cards left in their "Blitz Piles" and multiplies that number by two to calculate the number of points "against them".. So if I have 6 cards left in my "Blitz Pile" at the time the "Blitzer" went out, I would have 12 points to the negative to make up for. Then the cards making up the piles in the middle of the table are gathered up and separated into 4 piles by the colors/symbols on their backs. Each player then takes up the cards that belong to them, counts them, and applies this count to the points "against them" for that round. So if I have 12 points against me, and I count 19 cards of mine that I played to the middle of the table, I would have a total of 7 points for the round.

Usually a game consists of several rounds. We often played until someone reached 100 or 200 points. It's easy to score negative points for a round though, so reaching 200 can sometimes take a while.

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Gameplay:Games tend to be pretty wild affairs, with hands flailing, fingernails gouging, and cards getting bent as opponents try to beat each other to playing a card on the same pile. They also tend to be fairly loud, with lots of shouting, slamming, groaning, and cheering. It's a rush of adrenaline to be constantly scanning for places to play cards while bantering with your opponents and using your skills of dexterity to reach across the table and slam a card down in the nick of time. Often people prefer to play it standing up to make it easier to reach. It's amazing how good some people can get at playing this game, where rounds of only a minute or two occur.

Pros:
- It's easy to teach
- Practically no setup time
- Loosens up a crowd pretty quickly
- Can take as long or short as you want (depending on the number of rounds you set), making it an excellent filler.
- Almost always looks like a lot of fun to passers-by
- Increases pattern recognition skills

Cons:
- Cards don't often last very long
- People can get physically hurt (nothing more serious than a cut from a fingernail in my experience though)
- It's very hard for inexperienced players to beat experienced ones
- It's usually pretty expensive for what it is.

Final Thoughts: I pretty much grew up on this game. It was a favorite on our family game nights, and it seemed like almost all of our friends had a copy of this game as well. There's nothing quite like it for "breaking the ice" at a gathering and loosening everyone up. I can understand that you need to be with the right group of people to have a really good time with this - but I was always with the right group of people. :-) As much as I'd rather play most other games I own now, Dutch Blitz will always hold a special place in my heart. In fact, it will take many years before I accumulate more good memories with another game than I've built up with this one.

Edit: Added one more photo

Thread: Re: A Vonderful Gut Game?

garry_rice — 2007-01-16T02:41:12+00:00

Aye it can be fun...but I only play this with my wife when I feel she really needs to beat me in a game (not that she can't beat me in other games...she's just SURE to beat me in this one!). I usually only beat her when we play with partners and she's stuck with a slower partner(G)...

Thread: A Vonderful Gut Game?

historysteph — 2007-01-16T00:01:05+00:00

I played this game a lot in high school. It requires SPEED. It's a light game where you play your cards on piles in the center in order to get rid of your own piles.

At the beginning of the game, each player chooses a color, the color on the back of the cards. Red is a buggy, green a pump, blue a plow, and yellow a bucket. Then, those colors are also on the flip side, numbered from 1-10. Players play these cards on piles in the middle, building up by number.

The object of the game is to get rid of your Blitz pile while getting as many cards out as possible from your hand pile (wood pile), which you're flipping by threes throughout the round. You're competing against other players, so sometimes there's a race to see who gets their card out first. Many rounds are played, up to a pre-determined number, and the score is kept for each round.

Most people have house rules for this game, so I often, it’s played differently by everyone, which can be confusing at times. It’s best to compare rules before playing.

Fun factor: this game is fun if you like speed. You’re racing against others (for example, to put a green four on a green three), so you have to be aware of what’s going on in three areas: your Blitz pile, the pile you’re flipping through, and the middle area.

Strategy: none. Play any card you can as fast as possible.

Rules: easy to learn and explain. A beginner can learn in a minute or two, especially after watching a round. If you try to read the rules, however, it will take longer (no one I know has actually read the rules) because they’re fairly text-heavy, with a few illustrations.

This is not a game a beginner will usually be able to win quickly; it takes practice. My first game, I was at -60 points while my friends were over 100. It takes practice to get good.

Overall, it's an easy-to-learn, fun, quick, family game.

Thread: Re: Women vs Men

Chump — 2006-08-30T02:29:35+00:00

I've definitely noticed this trend in general, and have seen it in action with Dutch Blitz. I've also seen examples in Sequence and Lost Cities. Women seem to like games that they can catch-on to quickly, not too deep, and once they have a strategy pretty much down, they like to just play quicker and quicker. It becomes like a chore, the quicker they finish, the more accomplished they feel they have become--it's about economies of scale. Watch their efficiency in the kitchen--can you prepare a meal so quickly?

Thread: Women vs Men

EndersGame — 2006-08-28T19:53:33+00:00

Is it my imagination, or do women seem to be better at this game than men? In my experience, the ladies do seem to be especially good at this high-speed game! Fast-paced games like Dutch Blitz, Ligretto, and other Nertz clones, also seem to be more appealing to women - perhaps because they tend to win? Or because most men don't like to think quick? These, of course, are deep questions about human-kind that go far beyond this simple game! But I'm curious whether any others have noticed any tendencies for females to shine more brightly at this game than males?

Thread: Re: Session Report

EndersGame — 2006-08-28T19:48:33+00:00

Women do seem to be especially good at this high-speed game! In my experience, games like Dutch Blitz, Ligretto, and other Nertz clones, are also more appealing to women - perhaps because they tend to win?

Thread: Education Week Dutch Blitz

Janiv — 2005-08-23T03:50:45+00:00

This is one of our favorite family games to play. It allows us to mix it up with gamers and non-gamers and all enjoy a good game together. There's a quite of few us that play when we get together so we combine up and play in teams.

This session we had four tems of two going. One member goes through the cards in the deck while the other member works with the cards on the table and blitz pile. We have a strict rule of only one hand out in the playing area at a time and that teammates must change roles every hand.

We paired up and spent the first game mostly teaching those who haven't played before how to play. They caught on quick but the newer teams did pretty poorly with very few blitzes and some negative scores. My mom and me won that round.

The second round went better but the game was easily won by my mom and me again.

For the third round, we decided to switch up the teams. We put two cards from each of our deck and randomly picked cards from that to create the teams. Players teamed up with those that had the same back as they did.

I ended up with my cousin who was new at the game and wasn't winning much. The third round went excellent for us though. And we ended up winning the game.

The third round was the most intense and there was some very fast blitzes. The game locked up for a bit when no one could get a yellow 1 out but when it came, we quickly got through our blitz pile for the win. It was a blast fighting to get your cards down first.

Thread: Session Report

Andrew Tweddle — 2004-08-16T19:41:24+00:00

Elizabeth, Claire and Andrew played 2 games of Ligretto.

In the past we have found that the women consistently outplay the men at this game - even with different groups of players.

In the first game, it seemed as though the pattern might at last be reversed. Andrew easily reached the halfway mark first (50 points). Claire was having an uncharacteristically dismal game. But Elizabeth was catching up fast. A couple of negative scores followed for Andrew, and Elizabeth took a clear lead which she easily held onto.

1st game final scores: Elizabeth (122), Andrew (78), Claire (36).

Andrew was frustrated at his reversal of fortunes, and called for another game. Claire decided to swop packs with Elizabeth, giving her the yellow deck instead. Andrew commented at how often yellow seems to be the unlucky colour on BGG.

Claire had a good first round, but soon settled back into her dismal performance of the previous game. Andrew's frustration seemed to have helped his focus, as he again reached the 50 point target first.

But, yet again, he lost points in a few rounds of negative scores. Andrew's loss of 26 points enabled Elizabeth to race ahead and Claire to draw slightly ahead of Andrew.

This was the first time in either game where Claire had not been in last position. This seemed to galvanize her, and she recorded 4 excellent rounds of 19, 19, 17 and 21 points. This was sufficient to get her to the target 100 points, narrowly beating Elizabeth by a single point! A dramatic turn-around indeed.

2nd game final score: Claire (100), Elizabeth (99), Andrew (73).

Despite 2 valiant attempts, Andrew was unable to stop the women from again out-classing the men!

Thread: Session Report

Andrew Tweddle — 2004-03-14T20:46:43+00:00

My wife and I played 3 rounds of Ligretto to fill some time.

The winning score each time was 16 points (we didn't play it out to the full 100 points like you're supposed to).

Claire won the first game and I won the next 2. This is a rare feat (of course, she claims she was just tired).

Almost every time we play Ligretto the women outplay the men (and not the same guys each time either).

Has anyone else noticed this pattern, or are the guys over here a little slowed up?

Thread: Session Report

batman — 2003-03-17T19:45:03+00:00

Participating: John, Andrea, Deanna, Carl

A couple of summers ago the most played game at my house was Dutch Blitz. We stopped playing it regularly after that summer and it only comes out infrequently now. Last night was one of those nights. Four player is our favorite mode of playing this game and we looked forward to a doozy.

The first five rounds saw John Blitz three times and me (Carl) and Deanna blitz once each. John got positive points even when he didn't blitz so he was considerably ahead. John 48, Andrea -7, Deanna -8, Carl -13.

Throughout those rounds John's gloating was out of control, mainly because that's what he does, but also because he doesn't always win so he had to get his boasting in while he could. Andrea decided she had had enough. She blitzed three of the next four rounds (John getting the fourth) to knock John down a few pegs. John 35, Andrea 30, Deanna -17, Carl -21.

John got a quick blitz to, once again, give him a commanding lead. The next three rounds were mine. I got a lot of points during those rounds. Unfortunately two of those rounds were very long rounds and everyone else got a lot of cards to the center for positive points. John 73, Andrea 60, Carl 42, Deanna 8.

At this point we knew that the game would be over if somebody didn't blitz almost immediately. John only needed two points to finish the game. The round was medium length and everyone but Deanna was getting a decent amount of cards into the center. It was Andrea who blitzed first. She needed to beat John by 14 points to beat him. Points for the round were Andrea 18, Carl 9, John 8, Deanna -10. Not enough for Andrea to overtake John.

Final scores: John 81, Andrea 78, Carl 51, Deanna -2.

This was one of the longest games of Dutch Blitz I've seen. It probably would have been longer had Deanna been playing up to the par she usually performs at. She usually contends for the win. Congratulations John.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Stewart had to leave so we got two of the three kids to join us in a game of Dutch Blitz. I have a homemade deck(s) that can accommodate up to six. This game can actually be played by however many can fit around a table but you do need elbow room and the ability to reach across the table. The game has a lot in common with Skip-Bo. Each person gets 40 cards in 4 suits numbered A-10. These cards must be marked differently on the backs to tell one deck from another. I used X’s, circles and figure 8’s on blue and red backs. If you make your own I would advise using jumbo cards (not size but big numbers instead of multiple suit indicators. One big heart in the middle,etc,). You shuffle your personal deck and stack 10 cards to the side. Turn up the top card of this pile and from your deck deal 3 cards face up separately beside your pile of 10. You should have four face up cards in front of you of which you can play any of them. When you play one you fill the slot with another card from your pile of 10. You place the remainder of your deck in one hand and you are ready to begin. Cards are played to the middle of the table in stacks (not necessarily neat stacks). They have to be played in suit and in ascending order. Aces may always be played and start a new stack in the middle. When one places a 10 on a stack they must remove the stack before they can continue playing. Put it wherever you want out of the way for now. The cards in your hand are turned over 3 at a time as in standard solitaire and placed in front of you. When you have blown through these you pick up the pile and keep going as in solitaire. The top card of this pile can also be played to the stacks. You can only play one card at a time and use one hand at a time to place cards. The fun comes in everyone playing at the same time and as fast as they can. If two try to put the same card on a stack it is the one who got there first (the card is on the bottom). When your initial pile of 10 cards you laid out is gone you yell BLITZ and play stops. If someone’s card does not hit the table before this they must pick it back up. The blitzer of the round takes all cards played to the middle (do not forget the completed stacks set aside) and sorts them by player. Each player gets 1 point for every card he played into the middle and –2 points for every card in his ‘10’ card pile. Try playing to 100 and adjust your game from there.