Directions for Pick-Up Sticks
Pick-up sticks, also known as Jackstraws or Spellicans in the United States, is a game that has been traced back to the early 18th century, although its exact origins are unknown. The name pick up sticks is suspected to have come from the nursery rhyme, "One, Two, Buckle my Shoe." Most packaged games of pick up sticks come with between 20 and 50 sticks, each around eight inches long. There is one stick painted black,. and the other are painted red, blue, green and yellow. You can paint short dowels or wooden chopsticks or skewers the same colors to make your own set of pick-up sticks at home.
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Instructions
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Flip a coin to determine which player goes first. Pick-up sticks is best played with two to five players, although you can practice the skill alone. Decide on the number of points you must reach to win, or if you will play until the last stick has been picked up and the winner is the person holding the most sticks. The player that wins the coin-toss should hold the sticks in a bundle in his hand, with the one side of his fist on the playing surface. You can play pick-up sticks on a table or on a smooth floor.
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Release the bundle of sticks quickly and draw your hand away. The sticks will scatter and pile up.
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Pick up any stick of your choice without moving any of the other sticks in the process. If you move another stick while attempting to pick your selected stick up, you must replace your stick and it becomes the next player's turn. If you do not move any other sticks, you may move again.
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Use the black stick as a helpful tool if you are the player who draws it successfully out of the pile. You may use the black stick to help you lift any other sticks out of the pile, to separate any sticks that are close together, or to flip a stick off another that it is resting on.
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Move around in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction to the next player. That player may choose to draw more sticks from the pile or to begin again, gathering and scattering the remaining sticks. If any player succeeds in picking up all of the sticks, that player begins the next round, scattering the bundle again and drawing sticks until he loses a turn.
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Pick up a red, then blue and then green stick in that order, if possible, and those sticks will count for double their value. In regular play, the black stick is worth 25 points, red sticks are worth 10 points, blue are worth five, green are worth two and yellow are worth only one.
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Win the game by reaching the pre-determined winning score first over a number of rounds, or by picking up the most sticks in a single round, sudden-death match.
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