Let me familiarize you again with the game of Hot Potato. Players stand in a circle and toss an object back and forth while music plays in the background. In our case, the object was an artificial potato, one that was appropriately hot so that you burn your hands just a little when you hold it. The potato shape makes it just a bit more interesting to catch than a ball, but you can use any object. My Life or Death match of Hot Potato used one of these artificial potatoes.

  Each round of the match would result in eliminating one of the players. If you drop the potato, you lose. You must catch it and toss it to another player of your choosing. Assuming no one drops the potato, the round goes on until the music stops, at which point the person left holding the potato is eliminated. If the potato is in midair when the music stops, then the last person to hold it is eliminated.

  Tossing of the potato continues round by round until there is one winner.

  To prevent cheating, our artificial potato was also capable of sensing who was holding it and evaluating the quality of the toss. If someone drops the potato, but it's deemed that it was because of a bad toss, then the tosser is removed from the game instead. This attempts to make the game less subjective. Street games don't often have the same technology, so it's not uncommon for arguments and fights to break out.

  Then there's the ongoing question of cheating by way of controlling when the music stops. Like I said before, that's why there were Hot Potato radio stations.

  All this considered, let's be honest about Hot Potato. It's a game of mostly luck, unless you can find a way to cheat or someone cheats on your behalf.

  There are strategies, sure, but not many.

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  If you think someone is slower at tossing the potato or may have trouble catching it, you could target tossing to that person. Target someone too much, however, and they'll target you back.

  It also wasn't unheard of that a group of players would single someone out. Players respond quickly to this so that they aren't targeted themselves. Then the collective group would all toss the potato back at the person they had singled out in the hopes of eliminating them. It's hard to survive an entire game of Hot Potato if you are the person they target. In that way, this game is not just luck, it's a social experiment of evolving partnerships and betrayals among players.

  There isn't much to it other than that. Everyone knows not to toss the potato to the other person's dominant hand, instead targeting the weaker side to increase the chances of a drop. Everyone knows not to throw the potato too high because that increases the time at which the tosser could be eliminated if the music stops before the potato is caught. Toss it too fast though, and it might be considered a bad toss and result in your own elimination.

  This is a game of concentration and social dynamics.

  You better know who you are going to throw the potato to before you catch an incoming potato. Depending on the direction you are facing and quality of catch, you better have a few options in mind to get rid of it quickly and efficiently. Toss it too far into the gap between players and both of them might claim that they weren't the recipient, and this could result in the tosser being eliminated as well. Formal games had strict distances and lanes, with gaps clearly defined so that if the potato falls in the gap zone without anyone touching it, it's immediately known that the tosser is at fault.

  These rules provide the structure. The players provide entertainment, through the evolving social hierarchy and the smack talk to distract and bother other players.

  I won't lie. It's actually very fun to play even though most of the time you lose.

  This was a Death Match. Not common, but not uncommon either. We are aiways after all and could be reanimated. The most popular televised matches were Death Matches.

  I needed to win.

  I needed to win, not because I didn't want to die, but because if I lost, horrible things would happen to @bitchfrog, @zerogstar, and @foxcutter.