Power dot pro

Welcome back mathematicians. Today we're going to play a game called Power dot pro. This game comes from Dan Finkel and we'll be using his tiny poker dot cards. We've got a pack here today, but if you don't have one there is a PDF available that you can print and cut up.

Now to play this game you'll only need four of the colors, the aqua, the orange, the purple and the blue. But you can actually use the other, umm. the other colors as well or even that, the entire deck if you wish.

And today we're just going to be using the range from zero to five. So once you've sorted out both those colors and in that range, you can then put them back into your pile and shuffle them all up. So you can see there the different colors that I have. Now unfortunately I don't have any students to play with me today, but I am lucky enough to have two other people join me.

I've got Alex here, from, who you may recognize from Minecraft. He's a very keen player and we also have our panda friend as well. So looking forward to the challenge. So the first thing we need to do is to divide our playing cards, equally. So we have three players, so I'm going to just use a bit of direct comparison actually, just to try and make them as even as possible. Alright, that's pretty good. So here you go panda. There you go Alex, and myself.

Now, we're going to be playing, turning over two cards at a time today, but you can choose to turn over more if you wish. Okay, so panda, let's start with you. He's turned over a zero and a two. Now he needs to combine those, add those together, and he's got a total of two. The aim of the game is to try and get the highest sum, the highest total, and whoever gets that highest total actually gets to keep all of the cards. All right, so two is the one to beat. Let's see how Alex goes? Oh, well we already know he's already won, cuz I can see five there, cause that's half of a ten frame and a half of 10 is 5. And, oh, I can see five more, and that's a doubles fact that I know, so 10. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the highest total that you could possibly get, because we were working within that range of 0 to 5, so it is Alex. So wow, you're gonna be hard to beat. 4, well, I already kind of know that's actually impossible for me to win at this point. Oh, so close! 5 & 4 I know is 9 because I know that double 5 is 10, because Alex just showed that for us and I'm just gonna take one away because I know that 4 is 1 less than 5.

All right, so Alex, well done, you won that round. Your pile is getting a bit higher. All right panda, off you go. Let's see, 3 and 4. Okay, well, I know I could use my doubles strategy. So I know that double 3 is 6 and 1 more, ahh, that's the strategy you used panda? Okay, yep, and so that is 7. All right and Alex. Ohhh, so I'm wondering Alex, what do you need to be able to beat Panda? Oh, we can actually see there that you're going to need at least 3 to equal panda, so you're going to need at least 4 to beat him. Let's have a look. Oh you've got 5. Well done. 5 and 4 is 9. Ok and let's see. Alright, 9 is the one to beat. Oh, at this point, once again I think I might be unlucky again, because I know that 5 and 4 is 9, which is what Alex has got. And 3, and for me to get 9, I know that I would actually need 6 and our range only goes up to 5. So at this point I've lost so I might be lucky to get a second, yes, and I have, I've become equal, equal, equal loser with panda. So Alex, well done, you've won that round again.

All right, let's do one more. Ok panda, come on panda. We've gotta try and beat Alex. Oh panda! Letting the team down. Alright, three and one is four. Alex, come on, be kind. Okay, one, this is looking positive, and three is also four. Oh, we have a tie! Okay, it's over to me. Come on, come on, come on! Two. Okay so if I get a 2, I know I'm going to be equal because double two is four. So I want at least three. Come on, come on, Oh, oh no. Okay, so at this point, we have a tie between Alex and panda. So for us to know, who is going to get these cards, you can actually put all the cards into the middle and the tying players play another round against each other. So this is now becoming like a bounty, look at this. This is the, this is the round that you definitely want to win. Okay, so it's a bit of a face-off between panda and Alex.

Alright, panda. One. Ohhh, I don't like your chances. And one is two. It's not looking great for you panda. Alex, ohhh zero! And 2. Oh, oh my goodness, what, I don't even know what do you do at this point because panda has now run out of cards. So what would we do in this point? I'm gonna let panda use my cards I think. So panda, I'm so sorry, panda! Zero and 2. Alex, over to you. Zero. Oh, surely not. Okay, we're hoping for either a 1 or a 3 to avoid a tie. Oh and he's come through. He's got a 5. Zero and 5 is 5. Zero and 2 is 2. So Alex, you have won that one, and you get to collect the bounty, so that goes to you.

Well done, Alex, and thanks everybody for watching how to play Power dot pro. See you next time!