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Bohnanza Wikipedia is a card game where the goal for the player is to plant the maximum of beans in its two fields.

During the first step of a player's turn, it is possible to play the two first cards of his hand.

Is it possible to plant the two cards in the same field in order to get rid of these two cards without touching the second field ? (I mean, you plant the first bean in the field that you harvest immediately to be able to plant another type of bean in it.)

thesunneversets
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Xavier V.
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2 Answers2

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Yes,

You may plant both beans in the same field on any turn.

The rules state that during step one you:

  1. Must plant the first bean
    1. If it matches a currently planted bean then plant the new bean there
    2. If you have an empty field plant it there
    3. Otherwise you must harvest and sell all beans in one field before planting the new bean in the newly empty field
  2. You may plant the second bean using the same rules as the first bean.

When planting the second bean, it is legal to harvest and sell the bean you just planted. It's often a very good move to do so.

Pat Ludwig
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It certainly is possible. The cardinal rule of Bohnanza planting is "you must plant your first card, you may plant your second card". The only restriction on those two plantings is that they must both be legal. And you can harvest at any time, even for no profit, even between one planting in the first step and the next.

Initially I misread your question and answered as if you were asking "is it possible to play two cards of the same type in the same field in the first step of the first turn", which of course it is. Simply because it would be totally bizarre to overplant in the same field.

(Someone will doubtless correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's no possible advantage to keeping the second bean field free in this way in the first turn. If you plant and then overplant, and then turn up two copies of the bean that is now in the discard pile, or someone (mystifyingly) wants to give you three free copies of the bean in the discard pile, then you have presumably lost out! The absolute worst case scenario is that you will have to overplant the first bean field later in your first turn, or in your second turn, but that's not actually a very bad scenario at all: you lost nothing by letting the bean hang around in your field for a short time, while you were considering your options.)

Later on, it's possible to rapidly plant and overplant to cycle through your beans. Just remember that you can never plant over a single bean if you have another field planted with multiple beans!

thesunneversets
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  • I think you're right that there's no possible advantage. However there may be a case where you've already seen all the other 5 garden beans (for example), and so there would be no difference between overplanting from your hand, or overplanting from somewhere else. – tttppp Feb 11 '11 at 07:58
  • @ttppp: No difference except for possibly playing mind games with your opponents (if they don't know that you plan to overplant)! I agree it can often be a completely irrelevant choice, but as long as it can't actually hurt you... – thesunneversets Feb 11 '11 at 17:42