Gold Fever

In Gold Fever you are prospectors mining for gold. But what nasty prospectors you are, as you can throw the rubbish you don’t want down someone else’s mine…

There’s no board – all players begin with a cloth bag each containing five gold pieces, twelve gravel pieces (four each of grey, black and white) and, if you choose to include them – you can play without – one emerald and one ruby.

The rules are super-simple: on your turn, draw pieces from your bag, one at a time: the first to draw four gold pieces is the winner. But! If you draw two of the same colour gravel, all your pieces go back into your bag and your turn is over. To avoid going bust this way, you can decide to stick instead: not only are any gold you drew now safe for the rest of the game (ie they can’t go back in your bag) but you can put any gravel you drew into someone else’s bag! So the game is a personification of luck-pushing, as it’s possible – though extremely unlikely – the first player can win on their very first turn. More likely is the chance they’ll go bust if they simply keep on drawing from their bag – the canny player will stop at some point, and ‘poison the well’ of someone else’s mine…

If you’ve included the emerald and ruby, then when you draw an emerald you must draw two more pieces before you can stick. If you draw a ruby, a race begins: everyone begins drawing pieces (again, one at a time) until someone draws a gold. Nobody can go bust in this instance, and all non-gold pieces drawn are returned to their bags.