While dreidels are fun to spin, the excitement of playing the traditional dreidel game wanes quickly, especially when you remove the chocolate gelt from the equation.
On the eve of Thangsgivukkah 2013, the once in generation convergence of Thanksgiving and the first night of Hanukkah, I was motivated to create a more engaging Hanukkah tradition for my family.
Below is the story of how it all came together.
--Adam Zucker, Creator of Super Dreidel
Onto Something Super
The premise was simple, “from a game-theory standpoint, spinning one dreidel has limited outcomes, but what happens if you spin two dreidels together?” I began writing down the possible combinations of spins: gimel gimel, gimel hay, gimel nun, shin hay, ect. And just as Doc Brown from Back to the Future describes his epiphany for time travel, I also had my inspirational flux capacitor-moment: There are six two-letter dreidel spin combinations and there are six sides on the Star of David! At that moment, I knew I was onto something big, or rather Super.
The Initial Sketch
I hastily sketched out a Jewish Star and populated each point with of Hebrew letter pairing from the dreidel. I then included space for Doubles and Single Letter spins. I calculated the probability / payout for each spin, and the game was created.
Let the Betting Begin
The first year we played with pennies and colored pieces of paper. The next year, to my children’s delight, we bought bags of M&Ms and separated out each color to keep track of the individual players’ wagers. Despite conventional wisdom, M&Ms actually DO melt in your hands. The use of individual, pre-packaged candies like Starbursts and Hersey Kisses became our new standard. We were pleasantly surprised by the variety of Hersey Kisses available for the holidays. A win for Super Dreidel, allowing more people to play at once!
Super Dreidel Tournaments
Candy is great fun for the kids but many adults, especially your grandparents, really like to gamble. To cater to this audience, a tournament version of Super Dreidel was established.
This allowed players compete against each other rather than play against the “house” in the candy game. For the tournament game, players “buy-in” a specific number of betting credits (20 seems to work well). The player who accumulated the greatest number of credits after eight rounds of double dreidel spins wins.
Hanukkah 2023 marked our first annual Super Dreidel tournament where players were able to buy-in to games at $5, $10, $20. After each game the winner walked away with half of the pot and the other half of the money was donated to a local charity supporting housing. This fundraiser event was the final motivation needed to develop a version of Super Dreidel for other families to enjoy.
Game board evolution
