Due to the many playable variants of Kniffel, it is an advantage to know about possible player types and tactics. A brief historical overview rounds off this description.
Player types and tactics at Kniffel
Similar to poker, there is also Trick different types of players. Inexperienced players and newcomers tend to “go wildly throwing the dice” and will initially only be able to record few successes at Kniffel. But even “old warriors” or experienced players differ in their style of play: courageous and risky characters will tend to throw an additional shot in tricky situations rather than keep a sure result. This can lead to higher scores, but it can also result in some deletions. Conservative players will end the game round in a similar situation at Kniffel and forego possible extra points. On the other hand, there will be fewer 0-rounds for these people.
In general, however, every player should develop their own tactics for Kniffel. A balanced mixture of willingness to take risks and conservative gaming behavior leads to success in many cases. In order to be able to achieve better results with Kniffel, one should also have some probabilities in mind: a player who knows that his chances of an improvement are 1: 3, or the chance of a “perfect throw” with the variant ” Sharp Kniffel ”is around 1: 3000, decision-making is a lot easier. The so-called “gut feeling” does not come into play in a probability calculation, but it should not be ignored, be it just because of the tension. In general, knowledge of odds and probabilities does not play an important role in Kniffel, but it can be useful in some game variants.
Historical overview of Kniffel
In 1956 the game Yahtzee, now known to us under the name Kniffel, was invented and sold by ES Lowe. The game of dice is likely to have its original roots in dice poker, which was patented as early as 1881 – these two games are very similar and Lowe adopted terms such as full house or street. In 1973 Milton Bradley (better known as MB-Spiele) took over the ES Lowe Company – by this time Yahtzee had already sold more than 40 million copies. In Germany, the game has only been marketed by “Schmidt Spiele” under the name Kniffel since 1972. Meanwhile, a word kniffel variant is also available. This is based on the game Scrabbel and you play it with 7 dice that are labeled with letters instead of numbers. The Internet and various online game providers have also discovered Kniffel for themselves. They offer the dice game as a download or online game. It is even possible to take part in unofficial Kniffel World Championships via the Internet.
Veröffentlicht am 8. July 2021. Letztes Update vom 8. July 2021 durch Spielregeln.de
