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6 nimmt is a multiplayer card game for up to 10 people (in theory) that feels like a thinking version of a party game (no offence to party games). It’s such a simple game but it’s so fun and can be really satisfying to play. I say can be as it can also be really unsatisfying when you’re losing and are accumulating bulls like nothing else (but it’s still fun even in those circumstances).
Take 6
As you’ve probably gathered, 6 nimmt means take 6 (sorry if that’s really wrong, I don’t know German) as if you place the 6th card in a row, you have to take the 5 previous cards (which is something you don’t want to do). The core of the game is that there are 104 cards in the deck numbered 1-104. These cards are all worth a certain number of bulls from 1 to 7. Multiples of 5 have 2 bulls, multiples of 10 have 3 bulls, multiples of 11 have 5 bulls and as 55 is a multiple of 5 and 11 it would gain 7 bulls (these numbers are arbitrary to the game but interesting to know).
All the players get 10 cards and 4 cards are placed face up in 4 rows from lowest to highest in value. Everyone chooses a card and reveals it at the same time. Everyone then places their card in the central rows starting with the person with the lowest number and working to the highest number. The round finishes once all the cards from everyone’s hands have been played. In terms of which row cards are placed in, it follows these rules:
● Rule 1: Ascending order - The number of the card has to be higher than the one before it
● Rule 2: Smallest difference - The card has to be added to the row with the smallest difference of the last card in the row (i.e. the last current card is 45 and 68 in another row, 71 would be placed beside 68 as it has the smallest difference despite also being larger than 45)
● Rule 3: Full row - As the game progresses the rows fill up, if you’re the unlucky person placing the 6th card in a row, you have to take the previous 5 cards into your score pile. This 6th card is the new beginning of the row and you score the bulls on the cards you’ve had to take.
● Rule 4: Lowest card - If your card is lower than all the rows and can’t be placed, you pick up all the cards of a row of your choice (this does not have to be a full row). This card becomes the new first card of the row.
At the end of the game whoever has the fewest bulls wins the game!
Too Many Bulls
6 nimmt is an excellent game, I’m always bringing it out for game night as it’s so easy to teach and play and it’s very quick. You can easily go through a game in 20 minutes and there’s lots of flexibility to the length of games as you can play a single game or do a series. There are few other games that can adapt to time frames as well as 6 nimmt.
It’s also a game that works really well with larger groups, maybe not 10 people, but I have happily had 8 people play and have fun. It’s good because people are not going to spend ages picking a card as there’s no point over-analysing and the rounds only get quicker as the game progresses. Some people won’t like how luck-based it is as there’s no real strategy (obviously you can try picking a card based on what’s in front of you) but it all depends on what everyone else has chosen. But I think that’s another really good thing about the game, it’s not meant to be a hyper-strategic game, it’s just fun to place cards and hope that you won’t end up with a ton of bulls. 6 nimmt may not be my favourite game ever but I will always recommend it because it sits in such a great place in everyone’s collections.
