Pass the Pigs

Pass the Pigs is a commercial version of the dice game, Pig. Pass the Pigs was originally published under the name Pig Mania.

Rules

Each turn involves one player throwing two model pigs, each of which has a dot on one side only. The player will have points either given or taken away, based on the way the pigs land (see below). Each turn lasts until the player throwing either rolls the pigs in a way that wipes out their current turn score or decides to stop their turn, add their turn score to their total score and pass the pigs to the next player. The winner is the first player to score a total of 100.

Scoring

*Single Pig
**The pig is lying on its side - 0 Points
**Razorback - The pig is lying on its back - 5 Points
**Trotter - The pig is standing upright - 5 Points
**Snouter - The pig is leaning on its snout - 10 Points
**Leaning Jowler - The pig is resting on its snout and ear - 15 Points
*Both Pigs
**Sider - The pigs are on their sides, either both with the spot facing upward or both with the spot facing downward - 1 Point
**Double Razorback - The pigs are both lying on their backs - 20 Points
**Double Trotter - The pigs are both standing upright - 20 Points
**Double Snouter - The pigs are both leaning on their snouts - 40 Points
**Double Leaning Jowler - The pigs are both resting between snouts and ears - 60 Points
**Mixed Combo - A combination not mentioned above is the sum of the single pigs score
**Pig Out - If both pigs are lying on their sides, one with the spot facing upwards and one with the spot facing downwards the score for that turn is reset to 0 and the turn changes to the next player
**Oinker (or Makin' Bacon) - If both pigs are touching then the total score is reset to 0 and the turn changes to the next player
**Piggyback - If one pig lands completely resting on top of the other then the player is out of the game.

There are several variations to these game rules. One is the Hog Call, where a player attempts to guess the score they are about to land. If correct, they double their points.

Relative Frequencies

The approximate relative frequencies of the various positions (for a single pig) are:
*Side (no dot) - 6,139/17,581 = 34.9%
*Side (dot) ---- 5,372/17,581 = 30.6%
*Razorback ---- 3,852/17,581 = 21.9%
*Trotter ---------- 1,550/17,581 = 8.8%
*Snouter --------- 546/17,581 = 3.1%
*Leaning Jowler - 122/17,581 = 0.69%Sample size: 17,581(Note: results vary widely.)

The approximate relative frequencies for 2-pig combinations (ignoring Piggyback) are:

*Sider ---------------------- 21.5%
*Razorback --------------- 28.7%
*Trotter -------------------- 11.5%
*Snouter -------------------- 4.07%
*Leaning Jowler ----------- 0.909%
*Double Razorback ------- 4.8%
*Double Trotter ------------ 0.78%
*Double Snouter ---------- 0.096%
*Double Leaning Jowler - 0.0048%
*Pig Out ------------------ 21.3%
*Mixed Combo ----------- 6.2%
*Oinker-------------------- 0.38%

See also

Pig (dice)

External links

* [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2593 Pass the Pigs]
* [http://www.derepas.com/petco/ Pass the Pigs - Analysis]
* [http://www.members.tripod.com/~passpigs/prob.html Another statistical analysis]
* [http://www.tellapallet.com/pig_game.htm Yet another statistical analysis]
* [http://turing.cs.gettysburg.edu/~tneller/nsf/pig/pig.pdf Statistical analysis of both dice and rubber pigs]
* [http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v14n3/datasets.kern.html Pig Data and Bayesian Inference on Multinomial Probabilities]
* [http://www.thepeegies.com/game/ptp/ptpigs.html Pass the Peegies]