Game Daze Superstition Springs Mall Employee Recommendation, July 2011

Jacob -

No Thanks! is a card game from designer Thorsten Gimmler and is easily one of the best bidding card games out there. The premise is relatively simple: You want the least amount of points in a deck numbered for 3 to 35, and you have chips that subtract 1 from your total score at the end of the game. At the beginning of the game one player flips a card over and has to make a decision: Either take the card and all the points that come with it, or put one of your chips on it and give the person to your left the same decision.

There are two other twists that make the game very interesting. After shuffling the deck the card shuffler removes the top nine cards from the game and puts them back into the box without looking at them which leads into the other big twist. Each sequence of two cards or more that you have is only worth the lowest value in the sequence, so if you have a 19, an 18, a 17, and a 16, All of the cards are only worth the 16. This is where the strategy comes in. You may flip over a 20, and you can take it, but you see your friend over there has a 21 and a 19. You either take it and the 20 points, or he gets a chip and gets to lose 21 points. This is a must have family/party card game that anyone can enjoy. No Thanks! has a great “press your luck” element that never gets boring.

Game Daze Arrowhead Towne Centre Manager Recommendation, June 2011

Bob -

No Thanks is a deck of 32 cards numbered 3 to 35. Your goal for the game is to have the lowest score possible. Cards are worth points equal to their number value. At the start of the game you take out 9 of the cards randomly. Everyone starts with 11 red chips. On your turn you are going to choose if you want to take the current card, or say No Thanks and put one of your chips on the card. If you have no chips left, you HAVE to take whatever card is offered. If you do take the current card, you then collect any chips on it, and flip over the next card and decide to take that one or pass on it.

There is some interesting strategy that you can put into the game though. Keep track of how many chips each player has, and you can know how far you can push your luck when trying to get chips out of them, or when they are going to cave and take a card. The biggest strategy though, is that cards in sequence are only worth the lowest value in the sequence. So if you have the 6, 7, 8 and 9 card, you only have 6 points instead of 30. But getting sequences will be challenging, because other people might be low on chips and have to take a card, or the card in the sequence might just be missing in that stack of 9 cards you took out at the beginning of the game.