This article assumes you have played or are familiar with how to play Bohnanza, if you aren’t read my description and review.

Less is usually more
Bohnanza is usually won by a slim margin. Three coins for a third field can help but unless you get it very early it may not be worth it. Especially with more people I think having a third field is less useful as you can usually work out a trade to get rid of cards you don’t want. It even comes down to efficiency, you can only plant 2 beans a turn and so having 2 fields makes sense as you’ll never be planting in all 3 fields (unless you trade to get three types of cards).

Hand Awareness
You MUST plant before you trade. Let me repeat that…you MUST plant before you trade. Remember that when it is your turn you are planting that first bean whether you want to or not. If you don’t want it in your field trade it or donate it to someone else.

A time to sow
Look around the table if a couple other players are in a same type of bean you have to plant it may be better to trade it away. Unless you have a lot of one bean you may want to just try something unique. Then there will be less competition to get beans you want and a higher probability you might get a donation. This is especially true if the bean is rare as there are not always enough to go around.

A time to reap
Watch what people harvest. When a lot of Stink Beans are harvested in round one that means they will be drawn after the deck is shuffled in round 2. So if round one is almost finished and you have a couple Stink Beans in your hand plant them, more are on the way. Again this is even more true in round 3 as the deck is even smaller.

A time to trade
This is a follow-up to the above…watch what people harvest. When I harvest Cocoa both go into my earnings stack. So that means there are only 2 left in the entire deck. If I get one and someone has one planted I need to trade with them if I can. If not I will have to plant a card that has no more of its type. If I have all single fields no biggie, but if  not I may have to rip a multi-bean field to get rid of this one.

Time keeps on ticking…
Getting through the deck the first seems to take forever. But once all those beans are planted and harvested the second and especially the third go by quick. In fact the more players the quicker it goes. Be sure to plan appropriately as you may not have time to plant everything you want.