When we were in Costa Rica we ate several of our meals at the hotel restaurant. Each table had a decorative bowl of coffee beans on it. The service was very friendly at the restaurant, but it was a little slow, so to pass the time, my family and I invented games to play with the coffee beans. Some of the games were fun, others were interesting failures. The more entertaining games included:
1. Nim. (We didn't invent this one.) To play Nim, you arrange coffee beans (or other small counters) into piles. On your turn, you can take as many beans as you wish from any one pile. The object is to take the last bean from the table. We played lots of variations of this basic game.
2. Guess the Total. Each player puts between zero and four beans in his/her hand. Then each player guesses the total number of beans being held by all the players. Whoever is closest wins.
3. Tower of Beans (as seen above). Everyone starts with three beans. On "go" everyone tries to be the first to stack all three beans. Variation: who can make the highest stack of beans? (We couldn't make a stack higher than three.)
If you know of any good counter games suitable to play while waiting for dinner, please post them in the comments!
report this ad
The world’s first psychedelic computer enters the universal library. And it all runs in the browser, meaning you’ll never have to hunt for Workbench disk images again.
Every issue of Nintendo Power published between 1988 and 2001 is available at the Internet Archive. With all the tips, tricks and maps, one can “behold crudely drawn comics of Battletoads,” writes Rob Dean.
When you’ve been caught appropriating that hottest of cakes—the name of a contemporary political movement—one has two fair options: either (1) take your work seriously and make a case why it’s clever/smart/funny/interesting, or (2) apologize and fuck off. But Andre Vu, the “global executive brand director” of forthcoming sci-fi videogame Deus Ex:Mankind Divided, thinks he […]
Everything short of a ticket to Canada is here. Read on for the top 3 things you need to do to survive if ‘President Trump’ becomes real life.Start Your Own Business—Not Brought to You By Trump University This legitimate course bundle (they’ll even show you their tax returns) will teach you to make major cash without answering to […]
This tiny computer isn’t just cutest thing we ever did see, it’s actually incredibly powerful too. If you play your cards right, you can program Raspberry Pi (no relation to actual, delicious pie) to control physical objects on your command.You’ll just need a Raspberry Pi (duh) and a few courses to learn how to use […]
Sometimes a round of drinks ends in late night karaoke, body shots, and waking up to a tiger in your hotel room. We get it. It happens. The important thing is that we never put ourselves in danger of a dreaded DUI or worse, put others in danger too. Take the guesswork out of it […]
report this ad
I tried playing checkers with a coffee bean one time but the stupid thing just sat there and did not move a single checker on the board. Coffee beans are not good at playing chess or Monopoly either, they just sit there doing nothing even if you yell at them. Pathetic!
I’m actually transfixed by the grain of the tropical hardwood that makes up the table top. Hopefully it was sustainably harvested. That table will last for centuries.
Your guess the total game is the fundamental mechanic in the gambling game Perudo.
OK. Maybe I’m slow or tired or both, but I can’t get my head around Nim. I read the link provided and I looked it up on Wikipedia. I feel like I’m missing something crucial.
So, there’s three piles and two players. The goal is to pick up the last object. You can pick up any number of objects from one pile.
Player A picks up all the objects from pile 1. Player B picks up all the objects from pile 2. Player A picks up all the objects from pile 3. Game over, Player A wins.
What am I missing? It’s driving me mad.
Player 1 picks all the beans from one pile. Player 2 DOESN’T take all the beans from another pile, because the Player 1 will win. Instead, maybe Player 2 only takes 1 bean from either of the piles…
I have always enjoyed table football (everyone knows this classic game….slide the “football” back and forth and try to get it to hang over the edge of the table, without falling off!). A sugar packet -or one of those horrendous fake sweeteners – makes a superb football. Right size, right weight.
darn, beat me by one minute!
if sugar/splenda/nutrasweet packets are available and table is smooth (wood or plastic, not table clothed) take one packet and lay it on the table. using one hand, slide the packet across table with the goal of getting it to hang over the edge of the opposite side, but not fall off into your dining companion’s lap. can get very competitive!
OK, I think we are at the bottom of the content barrel; this is what the MSM call a slow news day. I can’t wait for the next thrilling episode, perhaps “I totally won that make-believe tetris game I imagined on the cubicle wall tiles while on the toilet this morning”
It’s blogs like this which make me your biggest fan, Mark. This is the stuff of life.
I have a little game with my boys with paper drinking straw wrappers: PAPER SNAKE
1. twist the wrapper in the tightest “snake” as possible. Don’t tear the wrapper, just keep twisting it in your finger suntil it’s tight.
2. Slowly wrap the twisted paper in a circle between your fingers, making a spiral circle. Try to go as tight as possible.
3. Squeeze the spiral between your finger and thumb so it is totally smashed and won’t unravel.
4. Place the spiraled wrapper on the table.
5. Take your straw and get a drop or two of soda/water/drink on the end of it. Touch it to the spiraled wrapper
6. WATCH THE WRAPPER UNRAVEL LIKE A SNAKE.
Kids love this stuff. (so do I)
-Shane at Cigar Box Nation
I would’ve suggested something involving sticking a bean up your nose and targets, but I guess that’s why it’s good that I don’t have kids.
Freshacconci, what you’re missing is that both players will avoid knowingly making a move that will set the other player up for a win.
Player A takes all of the beans from the first pile.
Player B does not take all of the beans from the second pile, because they know that if they do that, Player A’s next move will be to take all of the beans from the third pile (and win). So, instead, Player B takes only some of the beans from the second pile.
Also, Nim is usually played with the person taking the last item being the loser.
True but not interesting. Nim and misère Nim have essentially the same strategy, as it turns out.
Game 2 is a drinking game I have played for years… Spoof we call it
Someone has to guess the exact amount and then they are ‘through’…. Last player in has the drink the nasty drink in the middle.
We have Pro rules that involve drinking 2 fingers of beer as a penalty. Calling out of turn, calling a number already called or gloating all mean a penalty.
probably not suitable for kids though ;)
No human would stack beans like that.
Creative restaurant, this will let customers waiting in the process of the fun, also will make customers feel waiting for a short time.
What am I missing? It’s driving me mad.
I feel the same way, but for slightly different reasons – Nim has a tidy solution using the Sprague-Grundy theorem, and it’s not something you can “unsee”.
Fan Tan, a simple chance betting game.
Four players (though can be modified). Pile ‘o’ beans in the middle. Each corner of the table is 1 through 4. Each player bets on one of the numbers. More than one person can bet on a number.
Four beans at a time are pushed out of the pile. This repeats until the last pile remains, which will be 1 to 4 beans. Folks who bet that number win.
2 people – 20 beans. You can only take 1, 2 or 3 beans each turn. Winner takes the lasts bean(s). It’s all about maths.
If you’ve got time in a restaurant to invent games using the various items on the table, I would dare say the service is wayyyy to slow.
We used to play ‘hockey’ this way with coins, hockey beans would work too.
Set up a goal at one end of the table with two coffee beans, or cutlery, or something. At the other end of the table, arrange three beans in a smallish equilateral triangle, a flat side facing the goal. You play by flicking the bean closest to you forward, and it must pass between the other two beans.
You gain a point by scoring a goal, or lose your turn if the bean you flicked goes wide of the other two beans, stops short of passing between them, or goes off the edge of the table outside the goal posts.
After you either get a point or lose your turn, the goal goes on your side of the table and it’s the other player’s turn to try.
ç ´ipoii
If you’ve got enough cups or small bowls on hand, you can play Mancala with them too,
I was in a similar situation once, and played a whole host of games using the glass beads I found on the table. I wrote it up in what is, I believe, one of my better blog posts:
http://jergames.blogspot.com/2006/05/metamorphosis.html
Yehuda
There is the classic pub game involving putting the coaster on the edge of the table and flipping it up then trying to catch it.
In Australia, we have a confectionery called a Mintie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minties , an individually wrapped lolly. A popular game is then to tear the wrapper in such a way as to see who can generate the longest strip when held taut.
Related: The orange peeling game where you see if you can get the whole peel off in one piece…
Simple things…
I don’t know how universal these are, but I’ve been mastering the flipping of coffee creamer (in Europe at least they’re pretty common) http://www.gruka.be/afb/koffiemelk.gif.
You tap one end and try to have it backflip back into the same position. Once you’ve mastered this you try to do as many consecutive flips as possible. Or one person starts with a flip, and then the next person flips, and the first one to fail loses that round. Obviously breaking the lid and spilling milk on the table is the worst kind of failure and will make you lose all your points and the respect of the waiter.
Or one person starts with a flip, and then the next person flips, and the first one to fail loses that round. Obviously breaking the lid and spilling milk on the table is the worst kind of failure and will make you lose all your points and the respect of the waiter.
Thanks everyone. Now I see it. I couldn’t get my head around what kind of strategy you would use in this. Now it makes sense.
Use the beans as dice. Pachisi used to be played with cowrie shells, which have a similar shape. When you flip one, the seam side will be more likely to be up than down, so when it does go down, that’s special.
Start with large piles and don’t let the players count the beans. Now you have a game again, albeit a different one.
When I lived in Italy we used to play “how many male/female beans”. Drop 3 or more coffee beans in your after-dinner Amaretto (or similar) and immediately cover it with your hand to hide it.
Your dinner companions bet on how many of the floating beans are “female” (floating with the ‘crack’ up) or “male”.
Good times.
L,C,R… it’s a simple betting game usually played with dice and cash, but easy to modify.
Each put three beans in front of you. Roll three dice (you could flip coins instead), and give the beans to your neighbor or keep according to the results. 1,2 – Left, 3,4 – Right, 5,6 – Keep/Center.
(If it’s not clear how to generate 1/3rd odds with coins, think I-ching.)
Games to play with coffee beans? Bohnanza.
I keep banana-grams in my car for times like this.
A quick game called Stand the Cork. Hold a wine cork by the ends with any two digits. Drop on table so it stands on one end.
This is not a competitive game and requires a pen and paper, restaurants with paper place mats or table cloths are good, especially if they provide crayons. One person makes a mark of any shape on the paper. The other person or next person has to turn it into a picture that is recognizable by the other person. You can’t cover up the mark or obscure it. Whoever names it correctly first after the drawer is done is the next drawer with the previous drawer making the next mark. No points for drawing a frame around it. It’s a fun pastime.