Potato Man

Potato Man is a trick-taking game with the largely unused theme of potatoes in which you can sometimes achieve the highest scores with the smallest potatoes.

After dealing the cards out, players each play one card to the center of the table to form the "trick" – but each of the four colors can be played only once. (The exception: In a five-player game, one color can be played twice.) Whoever plays the highest card wins the trick – except that the three least valuable cards of each color (e.g. 1, 2, 3 of yellow) win the trick if one of the three most valuable cards of a color (e.g. 16, 17, 18 of red) would win otherwise. Whoever wins a trick leads to the next trick.

Each color has its own small deck of scoring cards with increasing values, and when a player wins a trick, he takes the topmost scoring card of the corresponding color. Thus, the more tricks that have been won with this color, the more valuable the next trick won with this color will be. Thus, you want to keep high cards of a frequently winning color in your hand in order to maximize your points – but the round ends as soon as a player cannot play a card due to the restrictions on which cards can be played in a given trick.

Players tally their points, then begin a new round, with the game lasting as many rounds as the number of players. In the end, whoever tallies the most points wins!

Learn more about Potato Man on boardgamegeek.com