We’re on to Game #4 from my/John’s goal to play an average of one board or card game per week for the year of 2021. We’re still working our way through that 8-pack of card games, and next on the list was a game called Bold.
The Game: Bold
Players: 2… John and me
Date: 7:50-8:20pm, Sunday, January 10, 2020
We’ve seen one game already with a shape/color/size/pattern matching sort of premise to it, with Blink. This game is much more fun, random, and easier for an adult to intentionally do badly to keep the peace!
The game is another simple one. You lay out 20 cards face-down on the table. The first player turns over two cards. If any element is matching—the shape, the size of the shape, the color, or the background pattern—it’s a match, and the player is awarded 4 points! OR… the player can be bold and keep going. If they turn over another card where anything matches the first two, they are now up to 9 points, but if there is no common denominator, they lose everything. A player could continue on further trying to amass more matches, resulting in 16, 25, or even 36 points for a single turn. But there’s greater risk involved the farther you go.
It has some memory involved, of course. If I turned over several matching cards and then my fourth was a bust, I’d have to return those cards to the table and the next player would know where they were. (When someone quits and takes their points they clear the cards and new cards from a draw pile replace them.)
How Bold Went
The game was a hit! John wasn’t very bold, of course. He would stop at 4 points almost every time, winning frequently, but not getting many points. I, on the other hand, would keep being bold and risking it, and surprisingly continuing to find matches. On each of my first four turns I got 9 points apiece, giving me a huge 36-16 lead, with John’s tears right on queue!
However, it was very easy to let John catch up simply by continuing to get riskier each turn. After three matches, I risked it all for a fourth, or fifth, always losing all the points I had earned. John then knew which cards to flip over to get an easy 9 or 16 points himself, turning those tears into laughter, as he pulled out a 43-40 win before I called it quits to start his bedtime.
The Stats
Ease: 10/10. Super easy. The rules say it’s 7+, but I have no doubt a 5-year-old could play.
Entertainment: 7/10. Rolling the dice and risking everything (while at the same time having so little to lose) can be fun once in a while.
Meltdown Factor: 3/10. There was a brief meltdown, but it was quickly erased. If I had continued to keep my points earned and stopped being bold, I would have won huge and he would have had a major tantrum.
Time: 7/10. The game lasted about 15 minutes once everything was set up and the rules were established, about right for my timespan playing a kids’ game.
Likelihood of Child Actually Beating Parent: 5/10. Since it’s largely random, a kid could win big if they just kept turning over cards and getting lucky.
Dad’s Review
Rating: 9/10
Definitely a winner. It was easy, but not super boring for an adult.
John’s Review
Rating: 7/10
The riskiness involved made John a little uneasy, otherwise he seemed to enjoy himself.
Record
John is now 4-0, “beating” me in this, as well as Blink, Pic Flip, and Dos. The legitimacy of those wins is, of course, open to interpretation.
Ryan Glanzer Blog 
You may have to do some research on how to make John a better loser. Nobody likes to play with someone who throws a fit when they lose!! That being said, I guess you turned out OK and you were a terrible loser.