Buck buck
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| Buck buck | |
|---|---|
| Players | 4 or more |
| Age range | 12 and up |
| Setup time | 1 minute |
| Playing time | no limit |
| Random chance | Low |
| Skills required | Running, Jumping, Observation |
Buck Buck, also known as "Johnny on a Pony", is a popular team game that has been played for many years, particularly at large social gatherings (such as concerts) or fraternity events where many willing players of different sizes can be found.
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[edit] Rules
The group divides into two teams. One member of the first team bends over and wraps his/her arms around a tree or similar object, the next member bends over and hugs the first one around the waist, and the remaining members do the same one after the other to form a "horse". The other team takes turns shouting "buck buck number 1 (2, 3,...) coming!", then with a running start, jumping onto the back of the "horse". Each team member stays on the horse while subsequent jumpers accumulate.
Rules may vary, but generally the objective of the jumping team is to collapse or "break" the horse, and the objective of the horse team is to get a member of the jumping team to touch the ground without breaking the horse. The winning team gets to jump in the next round. Collapses can be especially stressful for the horse team because the jumpers keep their feet away from the ground, thus doing nothing to ease the impact.
[edit] Strategy
Strong and heavy team members are obviously valuable. There is some strategy involved in forming the horse (deciding where to place weaker players in the line), as well as choosing the order of jumpers (sending some good jumpers first to get as far forward as possible, others last because they may have to jump atop a heap of previous jumpers).
An ideal jump should land with as much impact as possible, preferably on the smallest and weakest parts of the horse, but balanced and steady enough to avoid toppling a previous jumper. The rules may allow jumpers to move forward, backward, and/or bounce up and down on the horse after landing; this can further weaken the horse, but also risks toppling a previous jumper if the jumpers are imbalanced.
With large teams (more than 10 players), the horse team may be limited to 6-10 players (a different subset each round), while the jumping team is unlimited. This helps to prevent ties, where the horse doesn't collapse and the jumping team doesn't fall off; with a smaller horse, the jumping team will generally end up sending enough jumpers to either win or lose.
[edit] Tournaments
Buck Buck is popular with several teams (such as college fraternities) because it is well-suited to a round-robin tournament. Teams normally play each other in best-of-three sets, randomly choosing which team jumps in the first round. At the end of the tournament, two overall winners are chosen: the winning jumping team (the team that collapsed the most horses during the tournament) and the winning horse team (the team that avoided collapse the most times during the tournament).
[edit] Trivia
Bill Cosby's album Revenge includes a track "Buck Buck" in which he describes playing the game as a child. This track introduces Fat Albert, "the baddest Buck Buck breaker in the world", who was the basis for the hit cartoon series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
