All In: Predictions

• Designer: Phil Walker-Harding
• Publisher: Next Move
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4t6Vu3R
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In All In: Predictions, players become gifted foretellers vying to shape destiny itself. Combine hand management with strategic foresight in this fast-paced game inspired by classic poker in which only one prediction will unfold. Play cards, bend probabilities, and guess who holds the strongest hand to claim the pot.  Will you see the future…or just think you can?

To start, assemble the card frame for the player count. Each player gets a player aid card and a prediction token in their color; be sure that all players are using the same side of the player aid card.  The deck of cards is shuffled and each player is dealt a hand of 5 cards.  The leftmost 2 slots in the card display are filled with face up cards from the deck. The pot is started with four 1 value rune tokens.

On a player’s turn – the player must take one of the three action options: Play a Card, Pass or Go All In.

Play a Card – choose a card from your hand and play it face up in front of you.  On the left hand side of the card, you’ll see some action icons. Any icons with a star MUST be executed, all the others may be resolved.  Some of the actions are:

• Take an uncovered card from the Display
• Swap a card from your hand with the display
• Ask an opponent to say out loud the highest rank in their hand
• Draw the top card from the deck

After the actions are completed, add the card to the leftmost free space in the display.  If the first row is full, start placing cards on top of the first making a second row.  Any covered cards cannot be taken.  If the player has more than 5 cards in their hand at this point, they must discard the excess – one at a time to the discard pile.

Pass – add the top card of the deck to the display, again face up in the leftmost free slot.  

Go All In – only one player per round can choose this option. They place their hand facedown on the table. The top two cards from the deck are added to the display.  This player automatically passes for all future turns in this round. 

If the display has reached its card limit – that is two full rows – the round moves to the Prediction phase. Otherwise the next person takes a turn.

In the Prediction phase, the current player must place their token in front of whichever player they think has the strongest hand (could be themselves).  Go around the table until all players have done so.

Now, players reveal their hands and they are ranked.  Players who predicted the highest hand correctly split the pot as equally as possible, leaving any remainders behind.  Then each player scores runes for their hand (see the chart on the player aid).  Finally, players who have a Rune card in their hand earn 2 Runes for each – though these Rune cards can never be used to determine the rank of the hand.

Repeat the process for three rounds.  The player with the most runes at the end of 3 Rounds wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with the best hand in the third round. 

My thoughts on the game

Though I feel like the wave of hysteria around Texas Hold’Em Poker has receded a bit, there is still a lot of underlying interest in this traditional card game.   Evidence of this seen by the enduring love for the 2024 release, The Gang, which didn’t do great for me, but is well loved by many gamers.  All In: Predictions tasks players to create the best possible poker hand while also trying to use their deductive skills to figure out what sort of hand everyone else is making!  Unlike real Texas Hold’Em, you get a bit more information in this game with which to base your deductions.

The cards have dual purpose – they can either remain in your hand or they can be played and used for their action.  As most of the information ends up in the open, everyone will be able to see what you have chosen to discard, swap or pick up – and this will help them figure out what you’re trying to do.

You can only keep 5 cards at the end of any turn, so you can’t simply draw a bunch of cards and then keep everyone guessing about what you’re trying to build,  Interestingly, if you think you know what other people are going for, you could intentionally try to draw the cards they need and then discard them out of the game.  You can only ever see the top card of the discard pile, so having a good memory will also keep you from trying to make a hand which is impossible to do (if a needed card has been previously discarded).  In the base game, there is no way to interact with the discard pile, so any cards there are gone.

The turn options are quite simple, and each round could play out fairly quickly. The rules allow you to pass, and while it hasn’t happened a lot in our games, I can see situations where you might want to pass simply to hope that a better card is placed in the display for you without you having to discard/play any of your current cards. The advantage of going all-in is that you are no longer able to be targeted by other player’s actions.  You can no longer change the composition of your hand, but no one else can learn about it either.  Additionally, as you’re forced to pass and add a card to the display on every further turn, you’ll accelerate the end of the round as the display will quickly fill up.

The prediction part of the game is a nice way to still score some points even if you’re not able to make a great hand; but I’ve found thus far that it’s better to simply try to make the highest possible scoring hand as this tends to give me more points than guessing who has the best hand. 

I’m a big fan of the designer as most of the PWH designs fall firmly in my wheelhouse.  All In has a lot of things that I like, and all the rules work just fine, but this one just seems a bit dry to me.  The plays tend to be obvious (make the best poker hand), and the subtleties of denying information to other players and/or denying cards to them through the discard pile feel like they are overweighed by simply gunning for the highest scoring hand and then getting the round to end as quickly as possible after that.  I’ll keep playing this a few more times to see if my feelings change, but thus far, the straightforward strategy seems to work a lot.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

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

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4t6Vu3R