Cross-Out Game


All ages.
Any number.
3 dice
paper and pencil for each player.

We call this the Cross-Out Game but I've also heard it called, "Centennial."

Each player writes the numbers 1 to 12 and 12 to 1 in order on a piece of paper, like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The objective is to cross out all your numbers, in order from 1 to 12 and 12 to 1.

Alternate turns.

When the player rolls the 3 dice, he can use any of the numbers showing or add any combination of them. The first number that has to be crossed out is a "1" so the player can't play anything until he's rolled a 1 and crossed out the "1" on the far left of his number strip.

More than one number can be crossed out in a single turn, as long as they can be crossed out in order. For example, an opening roll of 2-3-6 does not allow any cross offs, since the person has to first roll an 1 and cross off the 1 before crossing off a 2.

A roll of 1-1-2 is a great opening roll since it lets you cross off a "1," and a "2," AND a "3" (1+2) and a "4" (1+1+2). The best possible opening roll is 1-2-4 - it lets you cross out all the numbers from 1 to 7.

Another variation of this game is to NOT try to cross out in order, but to just cross out all the numbers that either show on one of the die or can be made by adding 2 or 3 of the dice. As another alternative, try imposing the rule that you can only use each number once - so if you rolled a 1-2-5, you could cross off the "1," "2." and "5" or the "3" and the "5" or the "1" and the "7" or just the "8" or the "6" and "2."

Posted: Thu - October 30, 2003 at 02:05 AM      

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