Overview
David & Goliath is a trick-taking card game for 3 to 6 players. It’s designed by Reinhard Staupe, whose previous designs include Edel, Stein, & Reich and Basari, and it’s published here in the U.S. by Playroom Entertainment. While the game features two Biblical figures, there’s really no Biblical theme. Players capture cards over several rounds, by playing either the highest and/or lowest card in a trick, with each captured card’s value depending upon the number of cards captured during the round. The player with the highest score will win the game. Our game times typically come in around 30 minutes, a little bit less with 3 players, a little bit more with 6. David & Goliath came in 2nd place in the Fairplay ala carte awards and was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 1998.

Out of the Box
David & Goliath comes in a small box with a plastic insert to hold the 90 cards. The cards come in 5 colored (red, yellow, blue, green, purple) sets of 1 to 18 value each. The cards are of decent stock with cartoon-type illustrations; along with its numerical value, each card has a picture of either David or Goliath. The lesser valued cards show a small David and as the value goes up, David gets a little bit bigger; when the cards approach the higher values, an incrementally larger Goliath is pictured. The multilingual (English, Spanish, French, German) rulebook is short and straightforward, with a couple of illustrated examples of game play.

Set Up
The number of cards used in a game will depend upon the number of players and the excess, if any, will be set aside. The cards will be shuffled and each player will be dealt 15 cards. The player to the left of the dealer will begin each round.

Game Play
Each round will consist of 15 tricks. During your turn, you must play one card, with play then passing to the left. You must follow the color of the card that was led, if possible; if you don’t have any of that color, you may play any card. Once every one has played a card, the player with the lowest card in the trick, regardless of color, captures the highest card in the trick. The player with the highest card in the trick, again regardless of color, captures all the other cards, including the lowest card. If there is a tie for highest/lowest card then, of the tied cards, the last one played is considered the highest/lowest. Once all 15 tricks have played out, scores are recorded. The cards are then collected, shuffled, and dealt in preparation for the next round.

Scoring and Endgame
After a round, all players sort their captured cards by color. Cards of colors in which you’ve captured no more than two, are worth their face value in points. Cards of colors in which you’ve captured three or more, are worth one point apiece. For example, if you’ve captured 2 red cards (10, 5), 3 yellow (13, 8, 7), 1 blue (12), and 4 green (7, 5, 3, 2), you’d score 34 points (15 + 3 + 12 + 4).

The game ends after you’ve played and scored a number of rounds equal to the number of players. The winner is the player with highest cumulative score.

Observations
While there’s a bit of randomness in David & Goliath, I think its impact is fairly minimal. You know beforehand the cards that are in play, and being that you can capture cards with either high or low values, you can usually adjust your strategy to fit your current hand. You can aim for getting just a couple of the higher cards of each color, or you can just try to get as many cards as you can, or you can try a balance in getting lots of some colors and a couple of some others. You’ll need to be aware of what the other players have captured; if they have a couple of really high values in a color or two, you’ll want to dump an extra card of those colors on ‘em to knock down their score. There are really a lot of options to consider in this game, making for many tough decisions. Also, with the unique scoring in the game, how well you can avoid taking cards can be just as important as capturing them.

Conclusions
I particularly enjoy trick taking games and I’ve found David & Goliath to be another good one. It’s fun, family friendly, and plays quickly. It makes for a solid filler and its simple rules, while easy to grasp and teach, belie its depth. Each hand seems to bring interesting (some times agonizing) decisions to be made. I really like the scoring system, as it really makes you think through each trick. If you like trick-taking games, you ought to give this one a try; it’s relatively inexpensive (around $10). I currently rate David & Goliath a slingin’ 7.