Rat-a-Tat Cat

I mentioned last week that Bentley's new favorite game is Rat-a-Tat Cat. He plays it daily with as many adults as he can cajole into playing. Jake has started to like the game, too, and so asks to play with us. Sometimes he's my partner, sometimes he plays all on his own (he does a good job!), and in the video below he partnered with Bentley.

Here is a little background on the game so the video makes more sense. Each player gets four cards placed face down in front of them. At the start of the game you get to look at the outside two cards, but the inner two cards remain unknown. When it's your turn you can either take the top card from the discard pile or choose a new card. You can then swap that card with any of the four cards in front of you. When you swap out an unknown inner card you risk getting rid of a good card which your opponent will then scoop up.

The goal of the game is to get as low a score as possible. Cats have low scores (0-5) and rats have high scores (6-9). There are three specialty cards: draw two (instead of one card, you can draw two), peek (you can find out what your middle cards are!), and swap (you can swap one of your cards for one of your opponents).

At any time you can say "Rat-a-Tat Cat" and end the game. All other players get one more turn and then the hand is scored. I love to go down quickly. Bentley hates it when I do that. He likes to hold out for only 0s and 1s in his hand--often not swapping out high cards until he gets one of those two cards. He won't swap a 5 for 9 and then later swap the 5 for a lower card. He'll keep the 9 until he gets a 0 or 1. This means you can catch him with lots of high cards in his hand.

Enjoy Team Boys against Grandma.