When I first discovered this last year, I thought it might go down quite well with the younger students. How wrong I was — the game was a revolution! I now have Year 7s and Year 12s alike demanding to play The Pirate Game. I think it is the combination of strategy, luck, mystery games and the option to steal everything from your opponent that has made a firm favourite amongst the staff and students of my school.To access the resource and join in the discussion, or to view all the other ROTW in this series, just search for “TES Maths Blog” on the internet.
Maths ROTW 5 – The Pirate Game

Can you produce a mirror against another mirror? Or shield against a mirror?
I was the goat at this game
I can't believe this game made the majority of students obsessed with the satisfaction of killing someone
Thank you, for the explanation I have never played this game before but am excited to try this with all my lesson tomorrow.
Where can I find the full written rules? I got an idea from this video but not quite the big picture.
I love when you get a skull and crossbones and hit a row and someone mirrors it and all hell breaks lose
My class of Year 6's loved it! They eventually learnt how to keep running records of their cash and helpful notes on what the other players had and did not have. Clever game filled with hidden maths!
is there any hacks. i have a usb
I played it today in class!
As a year 9 I can confirm that this is the perfect game
This is amazing! Perfect for bubble teaching! Thank you
Year 11, this game is still awesome
I played it in year 6
I play this game at the end of every year with Year 6. Not sure if this is a handy hint or not but I give my students a rule briefing and have them prep their grids the day before so I can give them a quick check over. Hearing the rules twice seems to help. They love the game!
This is the perfect game, just looking for strategies… I will beat the entire class by myself. And I will win the 10 sticker prize to get 100 stickers
Whenever my class play it we always make alliances so we give gifts to each other and don’t kill or rob each other
I love when you can try to kill your own row
This game is so fun with so many other people I remember we did this in Primary
my strategy is so good honestly
I loved playing this game with my students, but one question I got often was what do you do with the mirror and shield boxes?
Can the game be adapted for year 3's?
I love this game but causes a big war between everyone in the class 🤣👍