Trying to find rules to a game

December 30, 2008 7:10 AM

My father used to play a two-player game with us when we were little where he would make a pyramid with matches and then each player would take away two matches at a time until there were none left. The last person to take away two matches won. He cannot remember the name or rules. Is anyone familiar with this game. It seems to be a two-person version of the old-fashioned peg-pyramid game.
posted by earlygrrl to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

Best answer: It's probably a variant of Nim.
posted by suedehead at 7:16 AM on December 30, 2008

Best answer: Oh, and although the Wikipedia article doesn't mention it, it's frequently played with matches. See here, here, and here.
posted by suedehead at 7:19 AM on December 30, 2008

Go watch Last Year at Marienbad. I think there's a scene in there that explains it.
posted by history is a weapon at 8:22 AM on December 30, 2008

Best answer: Seconding suedehead, definitely sounds like Nim to me.

Our maths teacher used to play it on the blackboard with chalk marks instead of matches when we had some spare time in a lesson.

I think you set out a pyramid of four rows, with 1, 3, 5, and 7 matches.
You take turns, and you can take 1, 2, or 3 matches away on your go, but all from a single row.
Whoever has to take the last match loses.
posted by lucidium at 9:40 AM on December 30, 2008

My dad used to play this game with me and he referred to it as Nim, as others have suggested. Only we played it with pennies. Because you know, it's probably not a good idea to encourage kids to play with matches. ;-)
posted by katyggls at 11:57 AM on December 30, 2008

Response by poster: Thank you! This is it exactly. No one could remember anything except that my dad always won.
posted by earlygrrl at 12:00 PM on December 30, 2008