Hot Potato
картошка
A ring of players keeps a ball up in the air; whoever lets it drop squats in the middle and gets out again by catching it.
Hot potato is a game where the penalty does not take you out but changes your position. A player who drops the ball does not leave: they sit down in the middle of the ring and go on playing from there, on their heels and from below.
That makes the not a sin bin but a second playing place with possibilities of its own. Whoever sits in it may not stand, but may jump, and a single caught ball puts them back.
Two different tempos
The form with the pot is slow: the ball is kept in the air as long as possible, and all the interest is in who fails to reach it first.
The passing form is the opposite: the ball is moved as fast as it can be, because holding it is dangerous, and the game runs in short nervous rounds down to the last player left.
Light Ball
Under these rules: One ball for the game.
A ball comfortable to strike with the palms and to catch in the air.
A volleyball or an inflatable one. A heavy ball will not do: it cannot be kept in the air for long, and that is the whole game.
The rules of hot potato
Standing
The players form a ring facing inward. One of them puts the ball into play.
Play
The ball is batted round the ring with the palms and must not touch the ground. The direction is free — it can be sent to anyone.
Whoever is at fault for the ball dropping squats down in the middle of the ring.
Out of the pot
A player in the pot may not stand up to full height, but may spring up from their heels and catch a passing ball.
Catch it, and they rejoin the ring, while the player whose ball they caught takes their place in the pot.
Hilling
The ring may those sitting: while batting the ball, aim to hit somebody in the pot. A hit limits where that player may move inside the ring.
A player who is hit rejoins the ring.
With younger players
With small children the ball is not batted but caught in both hands and passed straight on. Whoever drops it, or holds it too long, goes to the pot.
The end
The game runs until people tire of it: this form has no standing end condition.
Worth knowing
Who counts as at fault for a drop — the player who failed to return the ball, or the one who sent it badly — is answered differently in different yards, and the whole game turns on it. Whether a catch brings back one player or everybody sitting in the pot is likewise agreed.
Glossary of terms
- Hilling
- Hits with the ball on those in the pot, by which the ring keeps them from moving about inside it.
- Pot
- The middle of the ring, where whoever is at fault for the ball dropping squats down.