Read Ultimate Book of Card Games: The Comprehensive Guide to More Than 350 Games Online
Authors: Scott McNeely
Ultimate Book of Card Games: The Comprehensive Guide to More Than 350 Games (64 page)
A player may also bid
nil
, which means they cannot win a single trick. If your partner bids nil, you still must try to win the amount of your own bid. A team may also
shoot the moon
by bidding thirteen tricks.
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first card, which may be any suit except spades. All other players must follow suit if they can. Otherwise, they may play any card. Tricks are won by the highest spade or, if none, by the highest card in the leading suit. The trick winner leads the next trick.
Spades may not lead a trick until they are “broken”—that is, until a spade is played on another suit (because the player had no cards in the suit that was led), or because the trick leader has no other cards except spades in his hand. When all cards are played, scores are tallied and the deal rotates clockwise.
VARIATION 1: THREE-HAND SPADES
It is possible to satisfy a Spades craving with only three players. Each plays for herself and starts the game with seventeen cards (instead of thirteen). The extra card is set aside and does not count. The player holding 2 of clubs leads the first trick. All other rules are identical to the main game, except scoring for overtricks, which count against your bid. For example, if you bid six and win seven tricks, you subtract the overtrick from your initial bid (6−1) and then multiply by 10 (5 x 10) for a final score of 50.
VARIATION 2: SIX-HAND SPADES
Spades makes a good six-player game. You compete in three teams of two, and two fifty-two-card decks are used (104 cards total). All other rules are identical to the basic game, except that when two identical cards are played in the same trick, the second (more recent) card wins.
- DIFFICULTY
:
low - TIME LENGTH
:
medium - DECKS
: 1
Without rugby, there would be no American football. Without cricket, there would be no American baseball. Without Whist, there would be no Bridge, Contract Bridge, Auction Bridge, or any of the other Bridge-derived games that evolved from their common ancestor Whist.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Whist was at the height of its popularity, few people would have called it a simple game. Yet Whist is a simple game. This is surprising when you consider the complexity of its offspring.
HOW TO DEAL
Start with a fifty-two-card deck, and deal thirteen cards to each player. The final card is turned face up for all players to see and fixes trump for the round. The trump remains on the table until the dealer’s first turn, at which point the dealer returns the trump card to his own hand. Card rankings are standard, with aces always high.
SCORING
Teams compete to be the first to score 7 points. Points are awarded only to the team winning more than six tricks, and 1 point is awarded for each trick in excess of six. If your team wins eight tricks, for example, you score 2 points (8−6 = 2).
HOW TO PLAY
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick with any card. All other players must follow suit if they can; otherwise they may play any card (including trump). Dealer: Don’t forget to pick up (and/or play) the trump card just before playing your very first card.
Tricks are won by the highest trump played or, if none, by the highest card in the leading suit. The trick winner leads the next trick. Scores are tallied after all thirteen tricks are played. The deal rotates left.
VARIATION 1: BRITISH WHIST
In Britain, where Whist is still very popular, it’s far more common to play to 5 game points (instead of 7). Otherwise, the rules are identical.
VARIATION 2: HONORS WHIST
The nineteenth-century version of Whist typically awarded points for
honors
— the A, K, Q, J of trump. Any team that captures all four honor cards scores a bonus of 4 points, or a bonus of 2 points for capturing three of the four honor cards. When scoring points at the end of the hand, honor points are tallied
after
the normal trick scores. This means the team scoring for tricks wins, in cases where both teams score 5 points or more in the same hand. The final restriction is that a team that starts the hand with a score of 4 cannot earn any points for honors in that hand.
Many of the games covered in the
Ultimate Book of Card Games
have variations specifically for four players and two-team partnerships. Here’s a complete list:
Multiplayer Games
IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER HOW MANY PLAYERS you bring to the table—the games in this chapter are highly adaptable. They also tend to favor “luck of the draw” over pure skill, because the number of cards dealt to each player is minimized (and, along with it, the role of strategy and long-term planning).
- DIFFICULTY
:
low - TIME LENGTH
:
medium - DECKS
: 1
This game’s name means “cucumber” in Danish, and there are variants of the game in both Finland and Sweden, also called “cucumber” in the local languages. Apparently the cucumber is bad luck in Scandinavia when it comes to cards—kind of like buying a “lemon” of a car in the United States.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS
4 to 7
HOW TO DEAL
Start with a fifty-two-card deck, and deal seven cards to each player, face down. The remaining cards are set aside. Card ranking is standard, with aces always high.
SCORING
The goal is to avoid earning points. Points are scored by the player who wins the last trick of each seven-trick round. Points are determined by the value of the card that won the last trick: aces are 14 points, kings are 13, queens are 12, jacks are 11, and all numbered cards are worth their
index value
. A player who wins the last trick, say, with 10 of spades, scores 10 points. Note that scores may never drop below zero.
When a player scores 21 points, he “loses a life” (or “gets cucumbered”), and his score is reset to the next-highest score. For example, if player one has 16 points and player two scores 21 points, player two loses a life and her score is reset to 16. Player two continues playing until the second time she scores 21 points, at which point she is out of the game. Agurk continues until only one player is left.
HOW TO PLAY
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick. Simply place the card face up in front of you; everybody plays their cards the same way, and players may look at the cards in front of other players at any time.