BASICS

REQUIREMENTS

-  3 - 4 players.

-  A normal deck of 52 playing cards.

-  Optionally a Mexican style hat (as a trophy / token - see extensions for more).

INSPIRATION

In the traditional mexican standoff three gunmen are holding guns at each other. They cannot escape the situation and the tension builds up until it's finally triggered and the deadly chaos follows.

BASIC IDEA / ANATOMY OF THE GAME

The game consists of three phases:

• START-UP:  Each player is dealt 6 open cards and 6 hand cards (in free order).
  • These initial cards represent bullets that you want to play at your opponents - you can think of them as two guns (one exposed and one hidden).
  • With 4 players, each player gets 1 extra card (= the whole deck is dealt): the dealer decides whether it's dealt face up or face down (for all players).
• BUILD-UP:  Played as 12 (or 13) tricks, where each player plays one (open or hand) card and the winner collects the trick.
  • However, the purpose is to avoid winning as each won trick contains bullets (played by the other players) aimed at you.
• SHOOT-OUT:  Finally the tension breaks, and the collected tricks start triggering.
  • The shoot-out ends when only one player (or none) is alive, or the tricks run out. Anyone alive is a winner.

BUILD UP

AFTER DEALING

With 3 players, each is allowed to exchange one card before the tricks start (in free order):

• Each player optionally discards one table or hand card and draws a new one from the deck in its place. (Some say it's arrogant to exchange a table card.)

The first trick is started by the player on the dealer's left - after that the "winner" of the last trick starts the next.

PLAYING TRICKS

The first player starts by playing a card face up, and the other players then play one card each (face down / face up) in clockwise order:

• The first card determines the trick colour, and other players must play the same colour if they have cards of that colour.
• Open cards are played face up, while hand cards are played face down. After all have responded, the face down cards are turned face up.
• The highest card of the trick colour wins the trick - in case of a draw, the latter played card wins. (See also the Number Classes special rule below.)

AFTER THE TRICK

After the trick is played, any cards of the other colour are discarded from it, and the winner then collects the trick as a penalty:

• The winning card is put face up on top and the won cards (of the same colour) face down below it - the other colour cards are discarded. The trick is placed into the winner's trick stack: sideways next to the open cards. (It's not allowed to look inside old tricks.)
• Exceptionally, if no one played the same colour (= no bullets to collect), the starting card is discarded as well, and the starting turn moves to the next player clockwise.

Special rule: NUMBER CLASSES

The numbers are divided into two classes: the lower class (2 - 10) and the higher class (J, Q, K, A).

• Normally the high cards (J, Q, K, A) are higher (= 11, 12, 13, 14) than the lower class cards (2 - 10).
• But if a trick is started with a high card, the higher class is degraded below the lower class for that trick. (So essentially: J = -2, Q = -1, K = 0, A = 1.)
  • For example, if the trick is started by a King (K = -2) and the other two respond by a 3 and a Queen (Q = -1), then the number 3 is the highest and wins.

SHOOT OUT

UNFOLDING THE SHOOT-OUT

In the shoot-out the tricks are triggered by the number of the face up card. (The tricks can be sorted accordingly before the shoot-out starts.)

• The higher class tricks (J, Q, K, A) are the initial shots, and they are all triggered simultaneously - there is no time to react.
• The lower class tricks are the after shots and they are triggered number by number in increasing order (2 -> 10).

Triggering a trick means turning it upside down (next to the trick stack) and rotating the face down card 90 degrees (to indicate it's been turned).

• Each bullet in the turned tricks (now face up) cost life points. After every shooting (= initial shots + each low number) it's rechecked if anyone died.
• The shoot-out continues until there's only 1 (or no) mexican alive, or the tricks run out. (Most often the last shots are fired around 7-9.)

SHOOTING (scoring)

Each bullet hurts followingly:

• Limb shot (2 - 10) costs 1 p.
• Body shot (J, Q, K) costs 2 p.
• Head shot (A) costs 3 p.

Each player has 7 life points: when all are gone, the player's dead. (Anyone alive after the shoot-out is a winner.)

• Note. With 4 players, there are less aims per player (13/4 = 3.25  vs.  12/3 = 4). However, there are more bullets per aim (3 vs. 2) - so be very careful.
• The traditional game is played for just one round. But of course you can play for multiple rounds / wins / losses (see for example Mexican Legends below).

EXTENSIONS

The simple but spicy Jefe's Hat and Mexican Jokers are recommended after learning the basics. You can always play Mexican Legends.

tournament mode: MEXICAN LEGENDS

The game can be played as a simple tournament:

• Each Mexican starts with a few lives, say, 3 lives, and after each round the dead ones lose 1 life - optionally counted by tally marks or small coins.
• The game ends when there's only 2 or fewer Mexicans alive (= at least 1 life left). The survivors, if any, are truely Mexican Legends.
  • If the same Mexican repeatedly wins these tournaments, he becomes the Mexican Goat (= Greatest Of All Times).

extension: JEFE'S HAT

In this extension each survivor of the previous round becomes a Jefe in the next round and gets a Mexican Hat (or Mask) as a token.

• Each Jefe simply gains +1 life point, so they can survive up to 8 hits (= the 7th hits the hat).

extension: MEXICAN JOKERS (aka JALAPEÑOS)

This extension spices up the game with a couple of jokers.

• The dealer decides how many jokers to include and shuffles them into the deck. (Usually 2 jokers with 3 players, and 1 with 4 players - but feel free to spice it up.)
• The jokers are either colour, and must be played if the player has no cards of the asked colour but has a joker.
• When starting a trick joker is an Ace of the declared colour - when responding, they are number 10 (of the trick colour).
• Similarly in the shoot-out, jokers as bullets (face down) hurt by -3 p. (= head shot), but as triggers (face up) they are triggered along the 10's.

STRATEGY

FLOW OF CARDS

Your initial open and hand cards have 3 potential end destinations:

• When winning a trick, they end up as the face up card of the collected trick determining when the collected bullets will fly at you.
• When losing a trick, they end up as a face down card of the collected trick representing a bullet aimed at an opponent.
• When unable to play the trick colour, they end up being discarded (representing missed shots) and are not collected at all.
• Preferably, you'd like all your cards to end up as bullets for others (2.). The next best is to get them discarded (3.). The worst is to win a trick (1.).
• Note that your own cards can never hurt you (directly): each mexican is talented enough to not shoot himself (except with Molotov's cocktails).

CARDS BY NUMBERS

HIGH CARDS (J, Q, K, A)

High cards are good but carry a high risk:

• When lost to others (as aimed bullets), they deliver more damage, which is very nice.
• However, all the tricks won by a high card means they will be triggered for certain - they are unavoidable.
• It's easy to avoid winning a trick when it's started with a high card, but when started with a low card, they are the worst. Accordingly, you often want to use your high cards to start tricks.

LOWEST CARDS (2 - 5)

The very lowest numbers are generally speaking good but carry a mild risk:

• Good for avoiding winning - especially when the trick is started with a low card (as most are), however sometimes even when started with a high card.
• Another feature is that all the low cards (2 - 10) only do damage to the limbs, not body or head, so you can take more.
• They are bad when you win a trick, because it gets triggered relatively early in the shoot-out (soon after the initial shots).

MID CARDS (6 - 10)

The higher end of the low cards are a bit annoying, but only mildly bad:

• It's very hard to avoid winning tricks with them. And when others realize you have only high mid cards of a colour, you're in deep trouble.
• However, when you win those tricks, they will be triggered very late in the shoot-out - at best, not triggered at all. Especially number 10 and number 9 are often used to collect very damaging (body and head) shots: hoping they will never be triggered.

COLOURS

High cards and colour:

• Avoid getting into situations where you have only high cards of one colour, because if the other players start with a low card of that number, you are very likely to get it and it will be triggered immediately when the shoot out begins.
• In other words, try to leave some (very) low number cards as an escape for these situations. In general terms, if you have high cards, it's good to use your starting turns to play them.

Getting rid of a colour:

• If you have more cards of one colour than the other, consider trying to play the other colour out - that is, playing that colour when starting a trick.
• If you end up in a situation where you have only cards of one colour, and the others don't have it, you'll be safe from further harm. On the other hand, you won't be harming others either (so all become safer), but it's still advantegous. (Note that you might still get the starting turn.)
• However, more often the others will still have some cards of that colour, so make sure you don't end up with just mid cards (6 - 10) of that lonely colour - as you'd then likely win most of the remaining tricks of that colour.
• Note that you can only discard a card when you all your remaining cards of the other colour. So take it into account, when evaluating if it could be possible. And sometimes the colour distribution is very equal among the players, so you might not be able to discard any card at all.

3 vs. 4 MEXICANS

Note that strategically the game is slightly different in the 3-player and 4-player-games:

• Most importantly, with 4 players there are fewer shots per player on average (13/4 = 3.25  vs.  12/3 = 4), while the shots are deadlier (up to 3 bullets).
• Another layer is that with 4 players the whole deck is dealt, and so you know for sure that if you don't have some particular card, someone else has it. With Molotov's Trick these certainties drop to probabilities as there are 1 - 3 cards still left in the deck.
• Finally, that there is no initial exchange of cards (as there's not enough left) makes the gameplay a bit crueler. (Note. If one was to play the 4-player-game with 12 cards, surviving would be too easy -> the basic dynamics would start to collapse.)

HISTORY

v1.2 (2021 -> 2024-06-06)

After v1.2 (2021) there has only been refines in the extensions (and a refine to the 4-player-game).

• v1.2.6 (2024-06-06): Refined Jefe's Hat (= 1 life point) and Mexican Jokers extension (= A when starting, 10 when responding - any colour, must play if only one).
• v1.2.5 (2023-11-29): Refined Mexican Jokers extension: jokers are colourless aces (not colourless number 15), and hurt accordingly -3 p. (not -2 p.).
• v1.2.4 (2023-10-15): Reorganized and simplified the extensions, now there's only Jefe's Hat and Mexican Jokers (and tournament mode Mexican Legends).
• v1.2.3 (2022-12-29): Work on extensions: Molotov's Cocktails are related to jokers, and Jefe's Trick is now Jefe's Hat. Added Mexican Legends.
• v1.2.2 (2022-11-09): Reorganized the extension sketches (and removed temporary versions). Now there's just one: Jefe's Trick aka Molotov's Cocktail.
• v1.2.1 (2021-12-23): Added a tiny but important refinement for 4-player-game: all the cards must be dealt (13 each).
  • Otherwise there's almost always 1 or 2 survivors, which in turn pulls the rug out of the whole shoot-out and dynamical balance regarding the numbers of the cards (9's and 10's become the worst cards - no counter-dynamic).

THANKS

SPECIAL THANKS

Special thanks to Johannes Aho and Ville Viitala for important ideas, feedback and analysis on numerous occasions.

FOR IDEAS, HELP WITH DEVELOPMENT & PLAYING

Johannes Aho, Ville Viitala, Rosanna Viitala, Emmi Viitala, Jouni Rämö and Iivu Saarinen.