Card Game: Poohsticks

I played the original stick-racking-down-a-river version of Poohsticks for the first time the other day, or at least I played it for the first time knowing this name for it. I thought there had to be an older and/or better name, rather than one from Winnie the Pooh, but as Lacey and Guy and I were playing at Tryon Creek in Portland, a couple hikers came down the trail towards us and I heard one excitedly whisper to the other, “Look! They’re totally playing Poohsticks!” So they joined in with us, and then I came home and made up this game, since I’ve had card games on the brain recently. Enjoy!

Players: 2-4

Cards: 1 standard deck, no jokers

Time: A few minutes, but perhaps dependent on your math skills.

Goal: Float your stick boat down the river the fastest!

Origin
This is a race game based on the original game of Poohsticks from Winnie the Pooh, in which players drop their sticks over the side of a bridge and watch them race down the river.

Setup
Each player takes an Ace. (I recommend spades and diamonds, for their aerodynamics.) This is their boat.

For a basic game, lay out a river of cards, 1 card per player wide by 6 long. (So 2x6 for two players, 3x6 for three players, 4x6 for four players.)

For a more advanced game, you can experiment with longer rivers or other arrangements, introducing bends, narrowings, etc. A 2-player game may opt to use a 3-card-wide river if they want to add more of these features without making it too impossible.

Remaining cards are set aside for the shared draw deck. Each player draws a hand of 3 cards.

Turns and Movement
Your Ace boat can enter the river at any card in the first row. From there, it can only move to other cards orthogonally.

To move onto a card, you have to discard cards from your hand to exactly equal the card you are moving on to, but you can use any combination of addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division that you want. (And of course, an exact match is also fine.)

Number cards are face value, J=11, Q=12, K=13, Ace can be 1 OR 14

You can make more than one move on a turn, as long as you can do it with only the 3 cards in hand and don’t use any card more than once. Each move is independent. E.g. you can’t play a King to move onto a 10 and then a 3.

You may not move onto a card occupied by an opponent’s boat.

At end of turn, redraw up to 3 cards.

If no moves are possible, you may discard and redraw 1-3 cards. This ends your turn. You may not discard if you already moved.

If the draw pile runs out, flip and shuffle the discard pile and use that.

Winning
Once you reach the final row, you must play a face card or an ace to exit the river and win the race. You may do this on the same turn on which you reach the final row, if you have a card left for it.

Remember which player went first. If multiple players exit the river on the same turn, they tie.

Under the Bridge variant
Leave one row of your river (any row you like except the first) face down. This is the bridge. If your boat lands in front of one of these cards, turn over only that one card and your turn ends, even if you have more playable cards. Next turn you can move onto and past that card as usual. If you can’t do so, you are welcome to move sideways and reveal another bridge card, though again your turn ends. Any flipped bridge cards remain revealed for following players.

Rocks in the Rapids variant
Turn a few random cards face down, representing rocks. Unlike the bridge cards, these cannot but turned over; you simply have to go around them. So make sure you leave at least one accessible path!

(If combining with the bridge variant, you might want to turn the rock cards sideways to distinguish them. Or you could leave them out entirely and go around the gaps. Or put any small object in the space to represent the rock.)

Boat type variants?
You could conceivably give each of the different Aces a special ability of some sort, representing different types of boats. This would probably take some work, though, to keep all the combinations balanced. Or it could be something simple like each Ace gets a free move onto another card of its own suit, but they can only use that once per game (and you’d have to choose your boat before seeing the river layout).