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Shorter Leis & Hidden Quantities Variant

In Lucky Luau, all card quantities and information are readily available for players to see.  This variant mode of play has you remove some cards face down at random before the game starts.  By removing cards from the available pool, you are no longer able to tell exactly how many of a specific card are remaining, as that may have been one of the cards removed at the beginning.

This variant also forces the maximum lei length to be shorter, so in 2 or 3 player games, the lei’s don’t get quite so big.

We recommend taking out a different number of cards based on player count, but you can easily adjust this variant to your preference.

Speed Variant (Submitted by Jeff Boltz)

Set Up: Same as normal game.

Game Play: In this variant there are no turns. A player will say go and everyone will start grabbing cards from the middle. All the basic rules are the same except that when playing this you can only handle one card at a time (no double grabbing and the like).

End Game: This time the game ends when nobody wants any more cards, meaning its possible for there to be some cards left in the middle at the end. Sweep those to the side and score your leis as normal.

Speed Variant makes the game last for only a minute or so, but with its speed comes your need for quick responses and exciting interactions. This is my (Jeff Boltz) favorite way to play with more players.