Ninety-nine (addition card game)

At the start of the game, three tokens are distributed to each player. Each hand, three cards are dealt to each player, and the player to the left of the dealer takes the first turn by choosing one of the cards in their hand, places it on the discard pile, calls out its value, and then draws a new card. The player to the left then chooses one of their cards and places it on the discard pile, adds its value to the previous card and calls out the new total. If a player forgets to draw a new card before the next player plays, that player must remain one card short for the remainder of the hand. Play proceeds in this manner until a player cannot play without making the total value greater than ninety-nine. That player must turn in one of his or her tokens, all cards are then collected and a new hand is dealt. Any player without tokens loses and is out of the game, while the last player remaining with token wins. A variation is to play with dollar bills, instead of tokens. The dollar bill is folded instead of giving a token. Five folds are allowed: all corners, then in half and after that player is out. The final player wins all the dollar bills.

During each round of the game, the running total will eventually climb to 99, and once it has, it is not likely to decrease very much before someone is unable to play. The game's strategy, therefore, revolves around cultivating a hand that can survive for as long as possible once ninety-nine is reached. This consists of saving 10s, 4s, 9s, and kings while playing cards of large value. Another strategy is to raise the total to 99 early by use of the required card (usually a 9 or King depending on house rules) in the hopes of catching another player unprepared.

Strategy and rationale for keeping cards of various values ("the long game" where 99 is reached slowly)

• Least valuable: 5, 6, 7, 8 have no long-term value
• Worth considering: Ace, 2, 3, can be used effectively when the score is in the high 90s. The Ace potential value of 11 is almost never of strategic value.
• Most underrated: Jack and Queen. If someone plays a 10 (minus 10) against a 99, these will push it right back to 99
• Overrated: King only buys you one extra turn, hardly better than a 9 at end-of-game play. If you are forced to play a high-value card, prefer to throw out a King in favor of keeping a 4 or 10 in reserve.
• Most valuable: 4. Playing 4 (reversal) when the score is 99 buys you the most number of turns until you have to confront the 99 score

Strategy for the bold move ("the short game" where you play a 99 value card on the first hand)

• If you have a 99 value card and two other high-value cards (4, 10, King) then you already have the "best" possible hand and waiting to play the 99 value card is no point.

Gamewright Games publishes a commercial version of Ninety-Nine called "Zeus On The Loose" with a purpose-built deck which has suitless cards numbered from 1 through 10. Cards depicting Greek deities have special functions, e.g. playing Poseidon subtracts 10 from the current count. This version also introduces a Zeus token which can be "stolen" under certain circumstances. The person holding Zeus at the end of a round wins that round; the action that ends the round can cause the player performing that action to steal Zeus and win the round. The first player to win four rounds wins the game.

The Mattel game Boom-O is a bomb-themed variant of Ninety-Nine. Players must keep the running countdown timer at 60 seconds or fewer in order to guard their bomb tokens from "exploding".

• Slapjack
• Egyptian Ratscrew

• Game rules at worksheets.site
• Game rules at www.barmester.com
• Patent for a commercial release of the game
• Example of Ninety nine game programming on Casio fx-860Pvc at casio.ledudu.com
• Zeus on the Loose at boardgamegeek.com