#20: Royal Turf (Mark's 100 - 2012))

Royal Turf

Mark's Ranking

• 2012: 20th
• 2010: 50th
• 2005: 80th
• appeared on all three lists

BoardGameGeek

• rank: 408
• rating: 6.95

Print Status

• OOP

Why It's On The List

• Another great example of Knizia using math to make fun instead of dry as dust slogs (I'm looking at you, Auf Heller und Pfennig/Kingdoms.) It's horse racing with actual gambling & great levels of player involvement. It plays well with 4-6 players and I've never had a dull game of Royal Turf.

Tips & Tricks:

• Play with the "zero"/bluff bet variant & face-down bets. Trust me on this one.
• If you're in the lead, make sure your bets are on the better odds horses... and with the players who are closest to you in score.
• If you're behind, leave the leader on his own on a couple of horses. (This takes working together... which doesn't always happen.)

Extras

• There have been three versions of the game - my favorite is Royal Turf, but Winner's Circle may be easier to find.
• Here's what I wrote about Royal Turf for The One Hundred.

 ==========

If you feel a need to catch up on my admittedly-aging Top 100 as of February 2012 list, you can check out:

• my Pinterest board about the Top 100 
• a BoardGameGeek Geeklist (in order of BGG ranking)
• the rest of the posts here on aka pastor guy