Dutch Blitz


Dutch Blitz is a fast-paced, family oriented, action card game played with a specially printed deck. The game was created by Werner Ernst George Muller, a German immigrant from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The game is very popular among the Pennsylvania Amish and Dutch community, and among Christian groups in the United States and Canada. The game is similar to Nerts, which is played with standard playing cards and is in turn based on Canfield, a variant of the classic Klondike Solitaire. Unlike Nerts, Dutch Blitz is played with commercially produced cards.
It is an alternate version of the game Ligretto, manufactured in Germany.

Contents

The game is played with 160 cards, in four decks; Pump, Carriage, Plow, and Pail. Each deck includes 10 Red, 10 blue, 10 green, and 10 yellow cards.

Terminology

; Blitz Pile
; Dutch Piles
; Post Piles
; Wood Pile

Objective

The objective of Dutch Blitz is to score points by playing as many cards as possible on Dutch Piles, and by emptying the Blitz Pile as quickly as possible. This is done by playing cards from the Blitz Pile, Post Piles, and Wood Pile on the Dutch piles.

Point scoring

The game ends when a player plays all 10 of the cards out of his/her Blitz Pile and yells "BLITZ!" Each player scores points at the end of each hand as follows:
  1. Add one point for each card that had been thrown out in the Dutch Piles.
  2. Subtract two points for each card the player has left in his/her Blitz Pile.
Usually more rounds are played until one player reaches 100 cumulative points, yet some games have gone on for days at a time. Thereby consummating the garrulous winner with the prized crown of wonder.

Variations

A variation of the game relies on larger sized cards and can be called "Full Contact Dutch Blitz", "Running Dutch Blitz" or "Life Size Dutch Blitz". The larger cards must be physically run to their respective piles. This can also be a team game and is a popular activity at church retreats.