The simplicity of Bananagrams is one of its strong points. But there is one rule that always seems to cause debate and searching for the instructions: The number of tiles that each player is supposed to begin with. The rules call for the following initial tile counts:
- 2-4 players - 21 tiles
- 5-6 players - 15 tiles
- more than 6 players - 11 tiles
I find it easy to remember the cutoffs for each level, probably because 4 and 6 are both even. And 21, the number of tiles when playing with 4 players, is burned into my memory. So here is my mnemonic for determining the other numbers: After the cutoff for 4 players, subtract 6 tiles. After the cutoff for 6 players, subtract 4 more tiles.
That should shave ten seconds off my next Bananagrams match. Plus now I am no longer bothered about losing my set of Bananagrams instructions.