Poison – Knizia Card Game

Goal: brew potions into three shared pots without being the one forced to drink them — and finish with the fewest penalty points.

The Cards

• The deck has 50 cards: red, green and purple potions, 14 of each color, plus 8 black poison cards.
• Each color contains the values 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 — three 1s, three 2s, two 4s, three 5s and three 7s (there is no 3 and no 6).
• Every poison counts 4 in a pot and may be played into any pot. Colored potions must go into the pot of their own color.

The Deal and a Round

• Each player is dealt 12 cards (2-4 player games); leftover cards are removed face-down and never enter play.
• Three empty pots — one red, one green, one purple — stand in the middle. The starting player plays first, then play passes clockwise.
• On your turn you must play exactly one card. You cannot skip a turn, and every hand must be emptied.
• After your card lands, the pot is re-totaled. While the total stays at 13 or less, nothing happens. If the total goes over 13, the pot explodes.

Explosions

The player whose card made a pot explode must drink the pot's original contents — every card that was in the pot before their play. The card they just played is not drunk: it stays behind as the pot's new bottom, and the pot restarts from that value. So if a pot holds 12 and you play a 5, you drink the old cards but your own 5 stays in the pot.

Cards that are drunk are laid face-up in front of their drinker for everyone to see, and they never re-enter play.

Scoring a Round

When all hands are empty the round is scored, and fewer is better:

• For each color separately, the player who drank the most cards of that color throws that whole color away for free — but only if they hold the majority alone. If two or more players tie for the most, nobody is exempt and all those cards count.
• Every remaining colored card is worth 1 penalty point.
• Every poison card is worth 2 penalty points — poison is never exempt.

Rounds and Winning

• Quick mode: a single round decides the game.
• Standard mode (official): every player starts one round — N players play N rounds, with the starting seat rotating each round. Cumulative penalty points decide the winner; the fewest wins, and ties share the victory.

Count to 13, always. The safe ceiling for any card is 13 minus the pot's total. A 7 needs a pot of 6 or less; a poison (4) needs 9 or less. When a pot sits at 13, every card of that color detonates it — parking a pot at 10-13 is the strongest form of pressure, because the next players may have no safe card left for that color.

Choose which pot you drink. You never drink the card you played, only what was already there. Before raising a pot, ask what you would swallow if it exploded: a pot full of one color you are collecting can be worth drinking; a pot stuffed with poison never is.

Poison is a hot potato. It always costs its drinker 2 points, so save your poison for a pot somebody else will be forced to explode — usually the fullest pot you can top up without blowing it yourself. Never poison a pot you are likely to drink.

Farm unique majorities. Drinking many cards of one color is only cheap if you hold that majority alone: 5 reds beat 3, but 5 reds against another 5 win nobody anything. Watch the public drunk piles, chase colors where you can stay strictly ahead, and deny a rival their exemption by drinking into their color.

Spend big numbers early. A 7 in hand is a liability — it detonates almost any pot. Throw big values while the pots are still low, keep flexible small cards, and remember that when every play explodes, you want the smallest pot: count the cards and the poisons inside each one before you choose what to swallow.

Poison is a compact avoidance card game by Reiner Knizia, first published in 2005 by AMIGO in Germany and since released around the world under many names — including Friday the 13th and Baker's Dozen — by publishers such as Playroom Entertainment, IELLO and Swan Panasia. It appeared on the 2009 Spiel des Jahres expert recommendation list, and its rules fit on a single sheet: three pots, a limit of 13, and the risky arithmetic of "one more card".

The design is a small study in loss aversion. Cards only cost points when somebody drinks them, drinking is always somebody's fault by definition, and the single-color majority rule rewards players who swallow a lot — of exactly one thing. Every explosion becomes a tiny auction over who blinks first.

This page is an unofficial, fan-made web implementation with generic CSS-drawn cards and lucide icons (no official artwork). You play against 1-3 AI opponents across three difficulty tiers, in a quick single round or the official multi-round format where every player starts one round.