Push your luck and earn some coin

Cut Throats Tavern is a card-based solitaire game in the Zadorf mini card games series. In all these games, you play to earn some precious perks for your final fight against Lord Zadorf, which shall take place in the last game of the series. In the case of Cut Throats Tavern, you play a set of luck-based mini-games to try to earn some gold and, ultimately, earn the right to face the Tavern owner and gamble for weapons that you may use in the final game. It is now available to purchase from Zadorf's website.

Image source: BGG

Besides the final confrontation, the game includes five mini-games: Chicken, Oracle, Russian Roulette, betting on the outcome of a boxing fight, and Spoof. You start your game with 3 coins. Once you have gathered a total of 10 coins by playing these five games, you can try your luck against Big G. If at any time you must lose a coin and don’t have any, you lose the game.

In Chicken ("Outfoxed"), you draw cards from the Chicken deck. All cards feature a number of chickens, or a fox. If you draw the fox, you lose. The goal is to reveal a number of chickens as close to 5 as possible. If you exceed this number, you also lose. Then your AI opponent tries to beat your score by revealing cards, except Foxes help her by reducing the number of your chickens by 1. If you win, you get one coin, if you lose, you lose one.

In Spoof ("Zeds Up"), you must guess the number of coins in your opponent’s hand. Once you’ve made your guess, draw a card that reveals the opponent’s hand: if you are correct, you win one gold, otherwise, you lose one. In the box fighting betting game ("Dynamo and the prize fight"), you bet up to 2 coins on either the Tavern’s fighter or his opponent, and then draw a card for each: the symbols on these cards will tell you who wins the round. Perform three such rounds to see who wins the fight – if you bet correctly, you will double your wage!

Image source: BGG

Russian Roulette plays exactly as a true Russian Roulette. There are six cards, one of which is your death. You first draw one. If you survive, you can either quit or push your luck. If you push your luck, the opponent draws a card and, if he survives, you must draw one again. The process continues until either your opponent dies (you earn 3 coins), you die (and lose the game immediately) or you quit, earning a number of coins depending on how many rounds you tried your luck at. Note that, if you survive three rounds, you can have mercy on your opponent, and play the game again.

To succeed at these games, you have the possibility to cheat. Cheating at games gives you an edge, but you may be discovered. When you use a Cheat card, flip it over: it tells you whether you are caught or not. If you are caught, you get your throat cut by the owners of the Tavern and lose the game. You can also see the Oracle ("Hope the clairvoyant") and draw an Oracle card. These have various effects that can be used to mitigate your luck: one card allows you to double your gains once, the Angel protects you from losing the game twice, the Devil allows you to Cheat twice before flipping the card to see if you got caught, etc.

Once you have collected 10 coins, you face Big G. You give him 5 of the coin cards and keep 5 for yourself. You must then play 5 rounds. Each round, you reveal Big G’s top card and play one of yours. The cards show armors and weapons with numbers. The best weapon scores as many points as the difference with the other card’s value, be it an armor or a weapon. Whenever there are two armors, no point is scored. If you manage to earn more points than Big G by the end of the five rounds, then you can keep the weapons for the ultimate face-off against Lord Zadorf!

#CutThroatsTavern #Grills #Zadorf