The In-Between Game
Math Concepts
Counting and order from 1 to 10.
Materials
Deck of playing cards, 40 tokens
Players
2
Set up
Use one set of playing cards from 1 to 10 (0 to 10 if you use queens for 0’s). Each player also gets 20 tokens.
Play
During a turn, deal two cards face up and a third card face down between them. The player decides to bet 0 to 3tokens that the third card is between the two cards (not equal to either of them). If the player is right, the player gets that many tokens from the other player. If the player is wrong, that many tokens go to the other player. You can play five rounds or until one player runs out of tokens.
Goal
The player with the most tokens at the end of the game wins.
Discussion and Tips
Discuss strategies for deciding how many tokens to risk. See if your students can decide on a simple way to calculate this, and then try out the strategy. If the class decides on two strategies, break the class into two teams, have each team adopt one of the strategies, and then have the teams play each other quite a few matches- which team wins more often?
Variations
Allow the third card to equal either of the two original cards. How does that change the betting strategies?