I always kinda assumed that play would stop at a point where the chocolate coins were unevenly distributed but all players were still in the game, because it seems unsatisfying to give chocolate to a child and then take it all away.
Or perhaps players would eat chocolates as they played, which serves the dual purpose of making sure that everyone enjoys some chocolate and hastening the end of the game, with the victor earning all the leftover chocolate as a prize for later.
Maybe the creators purposefully designed the game to take forever and keep the kids occupied, so the parents could spend time debating Talmud without interruption.
Yes, exactly, this is the reason the game (a random walk) takes forever to "end", because the kids try to get more than their share, lose some in the process, then try to get back what they had and realize they're satisfied with what they had initially, then stop playing. All the kids are happy, no kids are crying. It's not Poker where one person ends up cleaning everyone else out, that's not the point. It's to teach the dictum that "Poverty is a wheel that revolves in the world."
I always kinda assumed that play would stop at a point where the chocolate coins were unevenly distributed but all players were still in the game, because it seems unsatisfying to give chocolate to a child and then take it all away.
Or perhaps players would eat chocolates as they played, which serves the dual purpose of making sure that everyone enjoys some chocolate and hastening the end of the game, with the victor earning all the leftover chocolate as a prize for later.