Pinched!

• Designers: David Gordon, Jonathan Gilmour-Long
• Publisher: Mighty Boards
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 60 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3ZcfNzP
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

As the wealthy flaunt their valuables, with their infinite money and privilege, the less fortunate of us are left to scheme on how to skim a bit off the top. You are not wealthy. You call your esteemed profession: “Wealth Redistribution” or, in layperson’s terms – burglary, ah – but burglary is such a harsh word – pinching, merely, and you’re darn good at it. Unfortunately, so are your “friends”.  Each turn, one player (burglar) becomes “The Mastermind”, planning their perfect, infallible Heist. In the meantime, the other burglars in town have been busy trying to guess where the break-in will be. If The Mastermind manages to go alone, they will take all valuables in that location for themselves, but if the other burglars guess correctly, and show up in the right place, they will be able to pinch some Valuables from The Mastermind’s Heist! The player who steals and sells the most Valuables, and hence “Redistributes” the most wealth is the winner.

To start, pick a set of Locations to play with (based on the player count).  The four card suit locations have two sides, so you can choose amongst them.  If you play with 5 players, you must include the Bank Location as well.  And, in all games, the River location is included in the game.  Every slot in all locations has a random card dealt face up to it.   Each player gets a Stash board and is dealt 3 random cards that are placed in their Stash board – all cards of a particular type are placed in the same slot.  

Now, the game will be played in a number of rounds – and in each round, every player will get one chance to be the Mastermind.   On a turn, all players choose a location card.  The Mastermind is choosing the location of the Heist for the turn.  All the other players are trying to guess the location that the Mastermind is choosing.  The game encourages table talk at this time to either cajole people to join you or to mislead people.  All location cards are then revealed.

The location chosen by the Mastermind is the scene of the Heist.  The Mastermind first chooses any card from that location and puts it in his Stash.  Then going clockwise around the table, any other player who chose the same location gets to take a card from the location.  Finally, the Mastermind gets to choose a second card.  If no other cards are available, the Mastermind gets a random card from the top of the deck.  The location is replenished before the next round.

Then, the Mastermind gets the chance to sell any number of sets from their Stash. The cards show how many points you get based on how many cards you sell.  Simply flip the requisite number of cards over from your sale into your score pile (each is worth 1VP) and then discard the rest.  All non-Mastermind players in clockwise order get to choose one of the 3 face up cards from the River and then replenishes the board.

After the prescribed number of rounds (5 rounds in a 2p game, 4 rounds in a 3 or 4p game, 3 rounds in a 5p game), all players get a chance to sell any cards they still have.  Depending on which locations you have in play, there are also a few bonus scoring items.  Total up all the VPs, and the player with the most wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with the most points from gold bars (i.e. the most gold bar cards in their scoring pile).

My thoughts on the game

Pinched is an updated version of the “read my mind” genre of games.  Of course, it’s not simply just guessing here – you need to use your deductive skills to try to guess what cards the Mastermind is looking for.  Then, once you’ve figured that out, you then need to then apply your double think filter to the process – will the thief go to the obvious choice to ensure that they get the one card they want OR will they go to a different site hoping to scoop all of the cards at a location if they can get there by themselves….

Some of the location special abilities can lead to some unexpected choices – one location awards you with a straight points grab if you go alone while another lets you go through a secret passage and take a tile from any other location.  Each location also has two different sides, each with their own ability, so the interactions from game to game are likely to change. 

The storage situation makes for some interesting decisions as well – as you can only hold onto three different types of things, you can’t just go collecting anything.  You’ll either end up discarding things you don’t want to collect or you’ll be forced to sell something early in order to make storage space – and this is likely to your detriment as the rate of return for the treasures generally increases as you sell more of the things.

I would say that I get two or three tough decisions a game when trying to decide if I’m going to bail early on something so that I can start a new collection of something else.  Sure, a lot may depend on what I can currently see on the board, what I think other people are collecting, and honestly, where I am in turn order – but as you can see, there’s definitely a lot to think about here.

The production is up to the usual high standards for Mighty Boards. The art is clean and uses bright colors that are easily seen.  The tiles are nicely color coded with the scoring rubric also easy to read.   The rules have lots of illustrations, though I will admit that I found them a tad hard to follow.  I think all the rules are in there, but not in a way that I could easily internalize them from reading alone.  Once we played a round or two, everything made sense – but the game is honestly quite easy to play – so if the rules don’t make sense, there are plenty of videos online to check out – or honestly, just play a practice round or two, and it should all click together nicely.  

As with all gaming crooks, it pays to be on your own.  In that way, it reminds me of one of the first games that brought me into the hobby – By Hook or Crook / Adel Verpflichtet – but with some more modern sensibilities.  I feel like this one plays best at the higher player counts as that engenders more possible interactions and makes it a bit more challenging. 

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y, Steph H, John P
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3ZcfNzP