Blind man's bluff (game)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses of the phrase blind man's bluff, see the disambiguation page.
Blind man's bluff or Blind man's buff[1] is a children's game played in a spacious enclosed area, such as a large room, in which one player, designated as It, is either blindfolded or closes his or her eyes. The It player gropes around blindly and attempts to touch the other players without being able to see them, while the other players scatter and try to avoid and hide from the It player, sometimes teasing him/her to make him/her change direction. The game is a variant of tag.
There are several versions of the game:
- In one version, the first player tagged by It then becomes It, and another round of the game is played.
- In another version, whenever any player is tagged by It, that player is out of the game. The game proceeds until all players are out of the game, at which point another round of the game starts, with either the first player or the last player to be tagged becoming the next It player.
- In yet another version, It feels the face of the person tagged and attempts to identify the person, and only if the person is correctly identified does the person become It.
A children's game similar to blind man's bluff is Marco Polo, with the main difference being that Marco Polo is played in the pool and the one that is "it" calls out Marco to which the other players reply Polo and as such give up their positioning by the use of their voice making it easier for the person who is it to go in the right direction.
The game is known as blind man's buff in the UK and Ireland, buff meaning a small push. It is likely that the American name is a corruption, someone mishearing or reading buff as bluff or thinking it a mistake.
Blind man's bluff can be played in an area free of dangerous obstructions so that the It player will not suffer injury from tripping over or hitting something.
The game was played at least as far back as the Tudor period, as there are references to it being played by Henry VIII's courtiers. It was also a popular parlor game in the Victorian era.
It is played among monkeys, particularly by bonobos (Scientific American 3/95 [2]).
