6 Takes! Review – The Best Board Game You’re Judging by its Cover

If 6 Takes! doesn’t sound familiar, you might also know it as Take 5, 6 Nimmt, or some variation of these. Being around for almost 30 years, 6 Takes! has racked up as many names as it has fans… and it has a lot of fans. Myself included.

How to play

You start the game with a hand of 10 cards and a goal to avoid collecting bullheads. These are on the cards, numbered from 1 to 104, with most cards only having one bullhead. Some have more, with 55 being the worst with seven bullheads.

With each turn, every player picks a card to play. These cards are revealed simultaneously, and then starting with the player with the lowest card, you’ll add your card to one of four rows in the centre of the table.

To figure out where your card is going to go you’ll look at the last cards in each row. Your card will end up next to a card that’s smaller than it, and closest in value. So a 10 card would be placed next to an 8 over 6, and couldn’t be placed next to an 11.

Now, the reason for these strict placement rules isn’t just a subtle nod to George Orwell’s 1984. The unfortunate player who plays the 6th card to a row then collects all of the cards from the row and associated bullheads. You know, the one thing you’re trying to avoid in this game.

Anyway, players continue to choose and play cards simultaneously until everyone’s used up all 10 of their cards. At that point, players count their bullheads and if anyone ends up with 66 or more, the game is over. Whoever has the least bullheads wins.

Otherwise, record everyone’s points somewhere, reshuffle the deck and begin a new round.

Expect the unexpected

6 Takes! sits alongside Condottiere and Love Letter, where critically it isn’t the best game. But that doesn’t stop them from being an absolute treat whenever it hits the table. All three of these titles buck the ongoing design trend of removing as much luck as possible from a game and instead using luck as a springboard for fun.

For example in 6 Takes!, even though you’re adding cards to rows in a very controlled manner. You have no idea what cards everyone has, and so you often have no idea of the chaos about to unfold.

Despite this, you still go into every turn with a plan. Both for the current play, as well as where you want your hand of cards to go by the end of the round. However, because of the order of lowest to highest and the strict placement rules. You often find players sneaking cards into rows before you, or blowing up rows before you get a chance to act.

This happens when you play a card lower than all four of the end-row cards. Instead of placing your card at the end of a row, you instead collect any row of your choice starting it again with your card. While this means you collect a number of bullheads, sometimes it’s better than an alternative play.

Also, you can blow up rows and mess up other players’ plans.

So this then poses the question of when it’s best to play your low cards. Do you wait until someone else plays a low card, so you can follow with impunity? Or do you take the L and the bullheads early in the round, because waiting to do so later will only earn you more bullheads?

It’s not all about the low cards though, that’s just one example of the decisions you have to make. The more frequent problem is how to avoid playing the 6th card.

This is a fun problem to think about and happens so frequently that it’s never far from your thoughts. With everyone playing one card per turn, 6 Takes! rushes itself to the point where the next card put down takes the row.

When this occurs it’s up to you to read the minds of the other players and hope to understand what they’re going to play. Another fun moment where you wish to tap into the minds of other players. But because of the element of luck, you’re as likely to be wrong as you are to be right.

Coming into 6 Takes! I had low expectations, a game of numbered cards doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that it’s going to be great. Yet, these expectations were completely blown out of the water. There’s plenty of room for interesting decisions and unexpected outcomes. Making it always enjoyable every time it hits the table.

After months of heavy use, 6 Takes! has proven it belongs in the ‘essentials’ category. It’s the latest addition to my list of portable small games I keep in my bag, and for good reason, it hits the table more than just about anything else I own.