Have you ever heard about or even played Pegs and Jokers? Usually played between 4, 6, or even 8 players, it is a race game with North American origins. It’s also called Jokers and Pegs at times. While some boards opt for marbles in place of pegs in their designs, more traditional versions still use pegs.
In case you have played the game or seen someone playing with marbles and not pegs, then you might have also heard them calling the game Jokers and Marbles or Marbles and Jokers. Today, we will not just talk about this game – we will also talk about the rules of this game.
Keep reading to find out more.
Playing Pegs And Jokers? Here’s What You Need To Know!
If you think about it, the pegs and jokers game have been ultimately derived from Pachisi, the race game that orginated in ancient India. The game primarily uses a dice for getting the movements done.
Coming back to Pegs And Jokers, it’s a game of partnerships that’s often plated with standard cards and home-made boards. It allows an additional scope in terms of strategy by providing players with different selection of cards for playing.
Every player comes with five pegs, while the different winners happen to be the very first team for moving their pegs – right from the START to the HOME areas.
So now that you have a fair idea about how jokers and pegs are played, scroll down for an overview of the game that you need to play!
Players:
The game starts with the players getting divided into 2 different teams – it’s a two-agasint-two game or three-against-three, or even four-against-four game! All players are requested to sit between two different opponents.
Since you can also play the game with six players in three different teams of two players each or even with eight players in four different teams with two players each – in such cases, players can just sit facing each other. You can use normal cards decks including the jokers in the decks. For six players, you can play with 3 card decks of 162 cards inclusive of the six jokers.
Equipments:
Now let’s talk about the pegs and jokers board. In case, four players are playing the game, they will use a nice four-sided board – if there are six players, they have to use a board that’s six-sided and in case of eight players, there will be a board with eight sides. Every side belongs to one player with every side associated with at least one single color.
Every player gets 5 pegs – these pegs are always of a color which corresponds simply to the nearest side of the game board. Also, every board side comes with a single straight section and a track that happens to be 18 units of length. While there’s one corner hole located at every end and shared between around 2 adjacent sides, there are 17 holes in total between them.
The eighth hole located right beside the corner happens to be known as ‘come out’ position and that too for the different pegs located on that particular side. Next to the eighth hole, the START area (it is a colored area) accompanied by five holes are located. The pegs in the same hues are located right here at the beginning of the game.
Next comes the third hole that is located right beside the corner – it is known as the ‘in-spot’ specifically suited to that color, as well as branching off simply here is also a colored private set of five holes – this area is your ‘safe’ area or ‘home’ area or even ‘castle’ for the pegs to finally end their long journey.
How To Play Pegs And Jokers: Rules That You Need To Know!
The basic purpose of playing Pegs and Jokers is to move all your pegs smartly around your game board in order to simply reach the home destination at first. So without wasting time, let’s find out about the game rules, instead of worrying about irrelevant stuff like ‘pegs and jokers template,’ for instance.
Deal And Play Of Cards:
While 5 cards are given to all the players, the remaining ones are just stacked down. Typically, all the players will hold the cards in order to hide the same from everyone in the game – players can only see their cards.
The cards that have already been played are kept face-up on the playing table in a pile. Also, the game goes in a clockwise order with players taking turns.
When it’s your turn, you have to follow the steps mentioned below!
- First draw a single card right from the deck with cards kept face-down – you will have six cards after you do so.
- Now, play any preferred card face-up, from your hands right onto your discarded pile.
- Then, start moving according to your played card’s power.
- If you possessed a card that will allow you to simply move any of the pegs then you should definitely play that card, even if it might appear to be a disadvantageous move at the moments. This is not applicable for a Joker.
- However, in case, you don’t possess any other cards expect the Jokers then you can just discard any one of the cards you have, and instead draw another card as replacement. This move will bring your turn to an end.
- The discarding part takes places only during the beginning of this game since players do not have pictures or aces for moving the pegs from the START area.
- No player is ever forced to actually play their joker cards. In case, you are out of moves then you can still hold onto your joker and instead choose to discard some other card.
Movement Of Pegs:
The jokers and pegs rules are incomplete without talking about the movement of the pegs.
If you want your pegs to be moved out of the START area then you have to play either an Ace or a King, Queen, or even a Jack – in this case, you can move the pegs to their ‘come-out’ hole. Also, if you use a Joker then you will be able to move your peg to any hole that is originally occupie by some other peg of different color, and that too anywhere on the primary track.
If you play a 10, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3, or 2, you can move your peg, which is not sitting on the START, forward for exactly that specific number of holes. While doing so, it is vital to remember that you have to utilize the entire value of all the playing cards.
Endgame:
In order to win a game of Pegs and Jokers, your team’s pegs must end their respective journey and reach the home area. While doing so, it’s imperative to remember that pegs cannot really move backwards to their home areas – this is also applicable to pegs that have already reached their home areas.
And It’s A Wrap!
You don’t have to think about something random like a joker card drawing when you can just enjoy a few good rounds of Pegs and Jokers. Don’t think too much about the rules and instead, just keep playing – you will find yourself nailing the game after a few rounds. Tell us what you think, and don’t forget to share your playing experiences with us in the comments below.
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Barsha Bhattacharya is a senior content writing executive. As a marketing enthusiast and professional for the past 4 years, writing is new to Barsha. And she is loving every bit of it. Her niches are marketing, lifestyle, wellness, travel and entertainment. Apart from writing, Barsha loves to travel, binge-watch, research conspiracy theories, Instagram and overthink.
