“Screw it. Let’s just start with the most difficult tower-style of them all!”
Vertical 3 House of Cards
WARNING: This is quite possibly the very worst place to begin your Jenga journey. Just building the tower requires a great deal of dexterity and focus. You will probably fail here… repeatedly. It will be frustrating. You will hate me.
But don’t give up. Struggle makes you stronger. Be careful, focus, and you can do it. And just because building the tower requires expert skill, playing does not. Even novices can do surprisingly well, as we’ll see shortly.
The tower is constructed using the “Vertical 3” building blocks, which, on their own, are quite precarious:
Next, you set them up in alternating rows, forming a rectangular prism until you run out of pieces to build with.
Then play proceeds as normal: You take turns removing pieces one at a time, adding them to the top, and continuing the starting pattern.
NOTE: As in all vertical Jenga variations, DO NOT remove the horizontal pieces. They are essential scaffolding and cannot be removed. Only take the vertical pieces.
This version of vertical Jenga is extremely precarious. Your compatriots will need encouragement. They’ll need reminders to be careful and focus.
Remember: You’re all in this together. The enemy is gravity.
Cheer each other on.
Make sure no one is making hasty moves.
AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T BUMP THE TABLE!!!
Eventually, (actually really soon) there won’t be enough free pieces to keep building the original structure, and you’ll have to switch to a smaller top structure.
You can determine whether or not this is necessary by counting the number of free pieces left in the tower (pieces that theoretically could be taken), and comparing that to the number of pieces required to make two Vertical 3 sets (10 pieces). If you don’t have 10 free pieces to take, you must switch to a single Vertical 3 centered on the top. If you don’t even have 5 free pieces, you can no longer follow the pattern (this is what happened to us).
But does that mean you’ve won?
No.
You haven’t won until all the free pieces are gone.
So what do you do?
You put down one last perpendicular in the center, and you start placing pieces vertically in the center, one on top of the other.
Stunningly, myself and three friends who have little-to-no Jenga experience (all of whom are named Ashley, by the way) BEAT THE GAME!* Now that’s how you win at Jenga!
*We were using my old Jenga set, which is missing a few pieces, so we did not technically beat this version of Jenga. So get after it! You could be the first IN THE WORLD to ever do beat it with a full set!