LCR,
a.k.a. Left Center Right, is a game without any strategy at all. This variance, LCR Wild, introduced by George & Company in 2016 does give you a little bit of twist.
LCR Wild
So,
what is the difference between “LCR Wild” and the original “LCR” dice game?
The
only difference is, they changed one of the dot side of the dice to “Wild”. So
instead of having dice with “L”, “C” & “R” on one of each side and dots on
the remaining 3 sides, you now have dice with “L”, “C”, “R” & “Wild” on one
of each side and dots on the remaining 2 sides.
The
game play is also altered a little bit. When rolling “L”, “C”, “R” or dots, rules remain
the same as before. But when rolled a “Wild”, player has to choose to get one
chip from any other player. 2 “Wild” allows the player to remove 2 chips from
any of the player(s). Rolling 3 “Wild” is a bingo. Player can get all the chips
from the center pot.
So,
instead of just keep rolling and rolling, player now have a chance to make some
decisions --To remove chip(s) from any
player(s) he/she prefers. The game is still 99% depends on luck, with an additional 1%
of strategy.
Also,
they have made the dice a bit bigger. 19mm dice are used instead of 16mm. The
chips and the tin box are also bigger.
Can
you play the original LCR dice game with a box of “LCR Wild”?
Yes,
you can. Just ignore the “Wild” and consider it as a normal dot will do. So, if
you have a box of “LCR Wild” on hand, it is not necessary to buy the original
“LCR” dice game.
General
Information
Player
3 to 12
Playing Time
20 mins
Age
5+
Year Released
2016
Designer
?
Publisher
George & Company LLC
Family
Dice Rolling
Score
3.5 (Board Game Geek)
Specifications
Dice size
19mm
# of dice
3
Faces
6
Details
The game contains 3 specialty marked d6
dice. Two of the faces are marked with a dot. The other 4 faces are marked
“L”, “R”, “C” & “Wild” respectively.
In additional, there are 24 pieces of
playing chips.
The
game play
Where
to buy?
Amazon.
Hacking
It
is possible to play this game with standard d6 dice with some conversions in
your brain. Consider 1 as “Wild”, 2 & 3 as dot, 4 as “L”, 5 as “C”, & 6
as “R”.
One
day, I showed my son a box of PUSH. PUSH is a card game published by
Ravensburger. It is a simple push your luck card game with 120 cards and 1
customized die. I asked my son, “What is the most expensive component inside
this box?” He thought for a while and said, “I think the answer should be the
die. But as the question is from you, I don’t think the answer would be
straightforward.”
I
always ask my kids difficult questions and expect some surprising answers. “The
rental. The most expensive part of the game is the rental of the toy shop. Or
maybe the salary of the salesperson.” Good guess, but not quite right.
Apparently, the game is purchased from Amazon. I don’t think the rental would
count up so much.
The
most expensive part of any game is its design. Game play is the soul of each
game. However, you can only patent the name of the game and the artworks. The
most important part, the game play, cannot be copyrighted.
Left
Center Right, or simply LCR, is a simple dice rolling game. It is a fast pace
game with absolutely zero strategy. Winning depends purely on luck. A 4 years
old kid can easily bet up a professor! Some even challenge that LCR is not a
game at all because there is nothing a player can do apart from just keep
rolling dice. However, my daughter like it a lot as she can easily become the
winner.
LCR, or Left Center Right Dice Game
LCR
seems to be a popular game in America. In my city, not too many people have
heard of it. And I have never seen any local toy shops selling this. And
because of its popularity, people start copying. There are some similar games
selling on Amazon or Walmart with exactly the same game play. Design is only
altered a little bit, typically changing the “L” on the die to “Left”, “R” to
“Right” and C to a star ★.
LCR
is originally published by George & Company LLC. It is cheap and playing is
fun. Although its rating on Board Game Geek isn’t really amazing, I recommend
it. Kids love this game. But please respect the designer and only go for the
original one. The sides of the dice are only marked with “L”, “C”, “R” or dot.
If you see the dice are marked with something else such as “Left”, “Right” or
“Center”, those are copycats.
General
Information
Player
3 to 12
Playing Time
20 mins
Age
5+
Year Released
1983
Designer
?
Publisher
George & Company LLC
Family
Dice Rolling
Score
3.5 (Board Game Geek)
Specifications
Dice size
16mm
# of dice
3
Faces
6
Details
The game contains 3 specialty marked d6
dice. Three of the faces are marked with a dot. The other 3 faces are marked
“L”, “R” & “C” respectively.
In additional, there are 24 pieces of
playing chips.
The
game play
Where
to buy?
Amazon.
Hacking
It
is possible to play this game with standard d6 dice with some conversions in
your brain. Consider 1, 2 & 3 as dot. 4 as “L”, 5 as “C”, & 6 as “R”.
Poker
Dice are probably the most common d6 dice variance in the western world. While
browsing around Amazon or Walmart web stores, I found so many sellers selling Poker
Dice at a very cheap price. It seems to me that every people in the west play Poker
Dice almost every day, everywhere. Not so in my country.
Poker Dice
Poker
dice are dice which, instead of having number pips, have representations of
playing cards upon them. Poker dice have six sides, one each of an Ace, King,
Queen, Jack, 10, and 9, and are used to form a poker hand.
I
have never heard of Poker Dice. Maybe they are common in the western world, but
I have never seen any shops around selling Poker Dice, even though most of the dice are made in China.
And
I am not the only one around. I bought a set from Amazon. I showed them to my
friends and colleagues. And none of them have seen Poker Dice before. “Oh! They
look so cute. I have never seen a die with a king printed on its side.” That’s
what I heard.
Poker
Dice playing is fast, easy and requires almost no setup. Kids like them a lot.
It mainly depends on luck but also a bit of strategy, to decide which dice to
keep and which dice to reroll. A mix of luck and strategy produces a good game
play.
Poker Dice from Da Vinci
Like
playing cards, Poker Die is in public domain. It is not copyrighted and anyone
can made. I bought my set from a manufacturer called Da Vinci. The dice come
with no box but only a small yellow envelope with a sticker on it, printed with
the brand name. There is no instruction. I got them for 6 US dollars, included
shipping.
I got a Play-Doh box from my daughter to store them.
The
dice are heavy and looks nice. But a close examination will find out that they
are not exactly cubes. Don’t know how this would affect the randomness. But I
believe with this price, I can get something better.
General
Information
Player
2 to 12
Playing Time
10 mins
Age
8+
Year Released
1881
Designer
(Public Domain)
Publisher
Da Vinci
Family
Betting and Bluffing
Score
5.1 (Board Game Geek)
Specifications
Dice size
16mm, or any size but not too small
# of dice
5
Faces
6
Details
Poker dice are d6 dice with each of its
six faces marked with representations of playing cards, one each of an Ace,
King, Queen, Jack, 10, and 9.
Manufacturers have not standardized the
colors of the face sides. But in tradition, red are used for kings, green for
queens and blue for jacks.
The
game play
Where
to buy?
Everywhere.
Or Amazon.
Hacking
Poker
dice may also be played with ordinary six-sided dice; the sides then count 1
(aces)-6-5-4-3-2 in descending order.
If
French-suited playing cards are the standard of playing card deck, then d6 dice
are the standard of dice rolling. Standard dice are, well, standard. Everyone
must have some in their home. And they look simple as well. It seems that there
is not much to talk about them? If you think so, then you are wrong.
I
grew up in the East. And the standard dice that I played along since my
childhood looks like this:
Common Chinese Dice
Many
casino games involve dice rolling. And when I think of casino, I think of Poker,
Monte-Carlo, James Bond & cigars. In my mind, dice are just like playing
cards. They are from the west. Only until recently, I started to know that
there are actually Chinese dice and western dice. And they are different.
Chinese
paints their dice pips in red colour for 1 and 4 and in blue colour for 2, 3, 5
& 6. Pips on dice from other countries are normally in single colour, often
either black or white. And there is a slight different in pip arrangement
between Chinese and western dice. Moreover, most western dice are right-handed.
But our dice are normally left-handed. This is called chirality.
Chirality of dice
Picture source: Wikipedia
So,
as we have French-suited playing cards, Spanish-suited playing cards,
German-suited playing cards, we also have “Western-suited” standard dice and
“Chinese-suited” standard dice. And for your information, there are also Pakistani dice. Pakistani dice are mostly in western style but with pips coloured red for
1 and 6. Anyway, what the heck?
Western Die vs Chinese Die
Standard
western dice are generally 16mm or roughly ⅔” in size, but it is not
uncommon to see “standard dice” vary between 14mm and 16mm. Chinese dice are
usually smaller. The ones that widely available in my country are 13.5mm in
size. I do see Chinese dice in bigger size though.
Dice
rolling is quick and fun. You can play a lot of little games with just a few
pieces of dice on hand. “Bunco”, “Farkle”, “Pig”, “Yacht”, “Ship, caption and crew”,
just to name a few. However, unlike playing cards which you can always find a
deck hanging around somewhere in your house, it is not always easy to find dice
handy. Yes, many board games got dice inside. But if you think you can just get
a die from your Monopoly and another one from your Cluedo so that you can play
“Sevens, elevens, and doubles” with your kids, don’t! I tell you, you won’t put
the dice back to their original box after playing. And one day when you wanted
to play Monopoly, you will shout, “Where’s the die?” Trust me!
If
you want to play some dice rolling games, it is better to purchase some standard
dice rather than getting die here and there. There are plenty of sellers on
Amazon selling standard d6 dice. However, if you don’t have any standard dice
handy at home, I would recommend to get a proper set of Liar’s Dice as a “starter
kit”. A proper medium-price Liar’s dice set normally comes with 4 to 6 dice
cups and 20 to 30 dice. Better if you can find one that also comes with a dice
tray. 20 dice are enough to play almost any traditional dice games.
There
are plenty of traditional dice games that you can play with standard dice. I am
going to show “Pig” as an example here. It is probably the simplest dice game
you can find. What you need is only 1 standard die and something to keep score.
That’s all you need. Nothing else.
General
Information
Player
2
Playing Time
10 mins
Age
8+
Year Released
1945
Designer
John Scarne
Publisher
(Unknown)
Family
Push Your Luck
Score
5.3 (Board Game Geek)
Specifications
Dice size
16mm, or any size but not too small
# of dice
1
Faces
6
Details
Standard d6 die with each of its six
faces marked with a different number of pips from one to six.
Among
different forms of tabletop games, dice games are probably the oldest in
history. Bone dice found in Scotland can be dated back to 3100BC. The oldest
board game Senet, which is played with 2 (sort of) dice, was first played at
around that time. Cards, however, are much younger. They were developed from
dice and only appeared since the 9th century. The reason behind, perhaps,
is because of the difficulties to create cards with indistinguishable back
sides.
Dice
game, Card game and Board game, what are the differences?
There
is always an argument on the definition of dice, card and board games. Someone
said that all card and dice games are in fact board games, because the table is
the board. Can’t argue with that. But I think with a bit of sense, we can still
make some distinguishments in between.
People playing dice in the middle ages
Picture source: Wikipedia
Let
us take an example. Many games contain dice, cards and board, such as Monopoly.
Should Monopoly be considered a card game or a dice game? No, it is a board
game because the main purpose of the game is to move the playing pieces around
the board. Same applies to Chutes and Ladders. You got a die inside. But it is
a board game.
Some
are more difficult to distinguish, such as Carcassonne. Apart from the scoring
board, the game complies many little tiles. Is it a card game or a board game?
I would say, it is a board game, as the tiles are placed on the table to form a
bigger board.
Card
games are more distinguishing. Like UNO or Skip Bo, they are pure card games.
No argue! Lotería is a problem. It got cards, boards and chips inside. Is it a
board game or a card game? I would say card game because the boards are for
score keeping only. Same as poker. The focus is on the cards. The poker mat is
just for recording the bets.
What
is a simple dice game?
Base
on the concept above, a simple dice game should contain merely nothing apart
from dice. Paper & pencils, and chips or tokens for score keeping are
allowed. A betting mat is also allowed. But nothing else should.
There
are many great games that contains lots of components, such as Sagrada and King
of Tokyo. Many refer them as dice games. I would say they are board games. I
did not say that they are bad. They are very good game indeed. But they are not
my focus here. Maybe I will include them if one day I decide to write something
about board games.
The second chapter is about dice games. I will share my
experiences on dice playing with my kids. I will only focus on simple pure dice
games, with limited components such as paper and pencils, or occasionally chips
or tokens for score keeping purpose.
Dice games of my choice
Simple dice games are easy to set up and quick to play. They
are ideal for filling up time gaps. I usually play a few games with my kids
before bedtime.
Card
games is a cultural topic. From the Standard 52-card deck to the “Spanish suit”
and to the “Hungarian cards”, their design and composition carry down many historical
and cultural messages from their originated area. For example, in the Standard
52-card deck, the king of spade is King David. This reflects the religious background
of French people during the 18th century, as the court cards were
given names in that period. We also see Caesar and Alexander the Great. Does
that mean in the European’s eyes, they are heroes but not conquerors? On
another hand, we have William Tell on the “Hungarian cards”. There were so many
famous plays in Europe at that time but why the play of William Tell was
chosen? Finding out the reason will give you a glimpse of the Hungarian
history.
Same
applies to the “card” game I am going to talk about today. The game I am going
to talk about is the Mexican bingo, Lotería. I will mention similar topics on
the next few posts.
Lotería
I
can’t remember exactly how I came across with this game. The word Lotería is
not in my dictionary at all. Lotería is totally unheard in my culture. For most
Hongkongers, the only thing we can think of about Mexico is, perhaps, tequila.
I
remembered one day I was searching traditional board game on YouTube. And a
video about Lotería appeared, with an Amazon link underneath. I clicked inside,
finding the pack including shipment is only US$12. It is a gift pack, came with
a box. So I bought one. Having an extra set of “card” game at home during the
pandemic is always a bonus.
To
be honest, I am not sure whether I should call Lotería a card game or a board
game. Board Game Geek called it a card game. But it comes with boards. Maybe
because the boards are for score keeping only. So it is classified as a card
game rather than board game.
However,
instead of calling it a card or a board game, Lotería is more a street game. I
have never been to Mexico, nor to any parts of the America. But I saw on
YouTube how people play Lotería there. It is sold on the streets, played on the
streets and most importantly, it is played by everyone. Lotería is popular there.
Lotería
normally does not come with a box. I found on eBay that most Lotería are packed
in plastic bags, stapled to a small piece of cardboard. I guess they were sold
in newspaper kiosks on Mexican streets, at a couple of dollars.
Lotería in basic packing
There
are always 54 cards in a pack of Lotería. And the patterns on the cards are
always the same. They became a part of Mexican culture. You can find handbags,
shoes, trousers and even café in Lotería theme. The arrangement of patterns on
Tablas are also the same between different packs.
I
don’t think Lotería has any copyright now. Everyone is making it. But the most
popular brand is still “Don Clemente”, the first company to publish Lotería in
Mexico.
So,
what exactly is inside my Don Clemente Lotería gift pack?
Actually, apart from
the box, the content is rather basic. You can find a full deck of 54 Lotería
cards inside, and 10 tablas. In addition, it also gives you some plastic chips
and a “songbook”.
“Don Clemente” Lotería gift pack
Traditionally,
pinto beans or Mexican coins are used as markers for score keeping. But it is
almost impossible to get pinto beans or Mexican coins in my city. It is really
great to have some plastic chips included so that I can play the game in a more
traditional way. If you want to add a pack of Lotería in your collection, I
highly recommend to go for the “Don Clemente” gift pack. And it is “Hencho en México”,
made in Mexico.
The set is "Hecho en México", Made in Mexico
I
saw on the Amazon comments that most people are discussing about the
“songbook”. So, I show it here. It is not exactly a “book” but a piece of card in
tabla size, with the verses for each cards printed on it. However, those 54
verses are widely available on the internet.
The "Songbook"
That’s
all! 54 cards + 10 tablas + plastic chips + a “songbook”, and no instructions!
But that doesn’t matter. Lotería instructions are widely available on internet.
And even if there were instructions included, it would be in Spanish which I
can’t read anyway.
And the most controversial parts of Lotería are these 2 cards, "La Sirena" with the breasts uncovered (sorry that my chip is in the way), and "El Negrito".
