Mystery Rummy: Bonnie and Clyde marks 75th anniversary of a deadly ambush

Game: Mystery Rummy: Bonnie and Clyde

Designer: Mike Fitzgerald

Publisher: Rio Grande Games, 2009

Age Range: 8 to adult

Number of Players: 2 to 4

Game Time: 30 minutes (or ad infinitum)

Mechanics: Card game/Rummy style

Complexity: 2

Challenge: 3

Almost 75 years ago, on May 23, 1934, a posse of six men, four from Texas and two, for jurisdictional purposes, from Louisiana, laid in ambush for Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. The two had been on a crime spree for about three years, that had resulted in the death of at least 10 people. While accounts differ as to whether Bonnie ever actually participated in any of the murders (some say she never wielded a weapon), the posse didn’t hesitate when Clyde took the ambush bait and pulled to the side of Route 154, between Gibsland and Sailes, Louisiana at 9 a.m. on that Wednesday morning.

They opened fire, reportedly discharging some 130 rounds of ammunition at the couple, without so much as the benefit of a “Get your hands up.” Reports differ, as well, as to how many rounds were found in the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde, with some reports indicating 50 rounds each, while others say it was more like 50 total between them.

As the 75^th anniversary of this roadside (and arguably justifiable) ambush approaches, two biographies of the couple have been released – Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn, and Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend by Paul Schneider. The New York Times book review on Sunday, which dealt with both of them at the same time, liked the first and didn’t have many nice things to say about the second.

At about the same time, I received my copy of the fifth entry in an ongoing series of Mystery Rummy games by Mike Fitzgerald. It would be a mistake to assume that these five card games – Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper (1998), Mystery Rummy: Murders in the Rue Morgue (1999), Mystery Rummy: Jekyll & Hyde (2001), Mystery Rummy: Al Capone and the Chicago Underworld (2003), and now, Mystery Rummy: Bonnie and Clyde – are the same game with different pictures on the cards. Each has a unique little twist to it that makes each one a separate gaming experience. The Jekyll & Hyde game, for example, has a double-sided, Jekyll & Hyde card, which will dictate which kinds of melds (or matching series of cards) can be played at any given time.

Card set from Mystery Rummy: Al Capone and the Chicago Underworld

The gimmick with the Bonnie and Clyde deck is a 10-space board and a little Crime Spree car that moves along its spaces. Like in the other Rummy games, Bonnie and Clyde is about making melds, similar to the way a standard game of rummy works. You get (in this case) three ‘Sherman, Texas – 1932’ cards and you can play them out of your hand. Scoring a hand will occur when the draw pile runs out or one player has eliminated all cards from their hand. The deal with the 10-space board is that at the start of the game, eight of the 60 ‘evidence’ cards (there are 6 each of the 10 selected ‘stops’ on the duo’s two-year crime spree), as well as one Bonnie and one Clyde card are placed, face down under each of the 10 spaces on the board.

At the start of the game, the Crime Spree car is based on location # 1 (Kaufman, Texas – 1932). When you play a meld or a layoff (playing cards already in evidence on the table, either yours or someone else’s), you get to look at the face down card under that location and either keep it or put it back. If you play a meld or layoff that matches the location of the Crime Spree car at the time you lay down the cards, and the hidden card is a Bonnie or Clyde card, you get to keep it and chalk up 10 bonus points for each at scoring time. Actually, if you own them both when the game ends, you get to score points and your opponent(s) do not. If you lay down a meld that indicates a different location than that of the Crime Spree car and uncover a Bonnie or Clyde card, you have to put it back. Only when your meld is the same as the car’s location, do you get to keep (capture) Bonnie or Clyde, if it happens to be the card under that location. There are also bonus points awarded based on the car’s location if a player goes out (plays his/her last card). If the car’s on Location # 2 (Sherman, Texas – 1932), you get two bonus points. If it’s on Location # 10 (Gibson, Louisiana – May 23, 1934), you get 10 bonus points. These points are not awarded if the game ends because there are no cards left in the draw pile (Case File). You can, as the result of playing a meld, move the car forward one space, or, if you’re playing a layoff, move it either forward or backward one space.

Scoring is about awarding points for every card you’ve played – 4 points each for every card in a meld or layoff that matched the car’s location at the time you played the meld or layoff (this is indicated by placing the meld sideways) and two points for every card in a meld or layoff that did not at the time match the card’s location.

You play to 100, or if you choose the lone suggested variant, 200 points.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow

It’s the tricky little movement of the Crime Spree car and the extra points available for playing cards matching the car’s location that gives this game its pleasant and engaging little twist. With only six cards of each of the 10 locations, it’s not easy to plan on getting those extra bonus points. Each time you think you’ve got it nailed and you’re ready to play your four ‘Erick, Oklahoma – 1933’ cards, where the car is at, your opponent plays something else and moves the damn car on you. You have to be real lucky to find yourself with the right cards matching the car’s location AND find a Bonnie & Clyde card there (with their 10 bonus points) waiting for you. But it sure as hell is fun to try. Unlike your basic rummy game in which the nature of the melds themselves is important, the melds here are only a mechanism for getting your cards, and ultimately, points out onto the table. It makes for a fun game that in my experience continues right up until that final card in a player’s hand is played or the Case File (draw) deck is exhausted. It’s quick and over much too soon and also, in my experience leads to a tight contest. Cathy and I are in the midst of a game which we might decide to extend to a couple of thousand points in which our scores are no more than two or three points apart from each other.

Much of what we seem to know about the ‘real’ Bonnie and Clyde has been based, more or less, on the movie with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, released in 1967. They were a part of that ‘gangster personality’ era, when names like Al Capone (see Mystery Rummy game of the same name) were on the pages of newspapers nationwide and to a certain extent, their exploits, murderous and treacherous as they were, were tracked with the same intensity that people are following fictional heroes these days; Spider Man, Wolverine, Batman, etc. The game doesn’t exploit the viciousness of this pair of dubious cult heroes. In fact, the game even pokes fun at the fact that the two tried to rob a bank that had been closed for four days and had no money (Location # 3 – Missouri – 1933). It’s hard to imagine that posse, though. Bruce Springsteen wrote a song called “41 Shots” to highlight the viciousness of a similar shootout in February of 1999, although, in that case, the victim was an unarmed immigrant, who had not, to anyone’s knowledge, harmed anyone. Bonnie and Clyde were a different kettle of fish altogether, but you still have to sit back and think a bit about 130 shots.

Just don’t think about it when you’re playing. It’ll spoil the fun for no beneficial reason.

For more info: www.riograndegames.com (at present, the Bonnie and Clyde game is not listed on Boardgame Geek. The other four decks of the series are, however; search 'Mystery Rummy'