Auf die Birne

Auf die Birne is a counting, memory and reaction game played with a deck of 60 windfall cards – each showing some combination of apple, pear and grubs – and 20 harvest cards.

In one of the two games included, players shuffle all 80 cards, then deal equal amounts of cards to each player. One at a time, players take turns revealing a card from their deck and adding it to a face-up pile. Whenever a harvest card appears – which will show either apples, pears or grubs – players race to grab numbered tokens in the center of the table. Each player with a token then says how many of the depicted item are shown on the cards in the central pile. Whoever is correct (or closest) wins the harvest card. The stack is cleared, then the game continues. Whoever collects the most harvest cards wins.

In the second game, each player has two harvest cards face-up before him and a deck of windfall cards. Now players are trying to slap the deck when any of the three items appears at least 11 times in the pile. If the slapper is correct, he wins a harvest card; if not, he loses one of those in front of him. Again, the player with the most harvest cards wins.