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What are your favorite hand games?

Games you only need your hands and other players to play.

We all know rock paper scissors, thumbwars and chopsticks but I'm looking for niche.

There's many obscure or local ones that get passed down through generations or shared around the playground and I'd love to learn something new.

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  • Red Hands is a classic.

    Oh, and I almost forgot about Bloody Knuckles.

    • The version of bloody knuckles that we had at school was you put your fist on the table vertically, knuckles towards your opponent. Then you take turns flicking a coin at each other's knuckles.

      • Hmm, I remember that one too but I just remember it being called "quarters," since they were largest, heaviest coin with an abrasive edge, so that's what was used.

        • Same though we would spin a quarter and then take turns flicking it while still spinning to maintain the spin; whoever knocked it over took the penalty flick against their knuckles.

    • I'd not encountered Bloody Knuckles before, but we did have the card variant when I was at school - the trick being to get a new pack, flex it a little and push the card so that all the edges are available to strike the knuckles in rapid succession. I was extremely good at it, as i recall, both in inflicting and (particularly) withstanding the pain.

      We knew this game as Scabby Queen. Evidently there is an actual card game called that, it seems, with the knuckle skinning merely the end result. We did not bother with the game part (or even know about it) - just the knuckle skinning.

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