Pit is as much fun as you can have with your clothes on in a group of 3-8 people, and it has been since 1904, when the box proclaimed that it was "The greatest of all party games." They were right.
Pit is a card game, with different suits representing different commodities: wheat, oats, barley, coffee, oranges, corn, sugar and soybeans, in most versions, each with a different point value. Originally flax was represented and some modern versions have oil and cattle. You have to corner the market by getting all nine cards of a single commodity. Quickly. While yelling. Sound simple? Basically, it is.
The game consists of 74 cards: eight suits of nine cards each, plus a bull card and a bear card. In deluxe sets, there’s also a little hotel-style bell, but it's totally unnecessary and your friends will thank you if you don't use it. You'll need a minimum of three people to play and a maximum of eight, the number of commodities. The dealer, who has already made sure there are an equal number of commodities and players, shuffles and deals the cards; because of the bull and the bear, two plays will have ten cards, the rest will have nine. And then the trading begins.
There are no turns. Players simply hold up from 1-4 unwanted cards and trade blindly for an equal number of cards, a process that involves calling out (loudly) the number of cards in the trade. This is a game that favors the quick and the bold, since everyone needs to be heard quickly and at once. When someone corners the market on something, they yell out or ring the bell, and the first round of trading is over. The catch is if you have the bear at the end of trading, you'll lose points. If you have the bull, you can use it as a wild card to complete any commodity. According to the rules, the first player with 500 points wins, although you can just play until you’re exhausted or laughing too much to continue.
In 1904, when George Parker published the version of Pit that (with minor changes) is available today, there were no video games or Internet or television. Movies were silent, and books were expensive luxury items. Games, played in family and social groups, were a prevalent form of entertainment, and in that social milieu, George Parker founded the Parker Brothers empire, now a division of Hasbro. While there was a 1903 precursor to Pit designed by Harry Gavitt, and known as Gavitt’s Stock Exchange, the version you can buy today was actually designed by mystic Edgar Cayce, better known as a psychic, clairvoyant, and for his ability to take a spontaneous nap.
Today, with a plethora of entertainments available, Pit remains one of the most fun things you can do with a group of friends.
N.B.: Parker dropped Pit from its line some years ago, but the game is kept in print by Winning Moves, a company co-founded by eminent game designers Alex Randolph and Phil Orbanes. And bully for them.
