The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (44 page)

details. Presumably it is trick-and-tie if two or three players win

one trick each, and if one player ‘puts’, then the other two must

jointly decide whether to concede or go for broke.

Put for four

‘Four-handed Put dif ers only in this – that on both sides one of the

players gives his best card to his partner, who lays out one in lieu

of it, and the game is afterwards played as in two-handed Put’

(Hoyle’s Games Improved, by G. H. , Esq., 1847).

Aluette

4 players(2 × 2), 48 Aluet e cards

Also cal ed Jeu de Vache, ‘The Cow Game’, l’Aluet e is a

picturesque extension of Truc mentioned by Rabelais in the

sixteenth century and stil extensively played down the left-hand

side of France, from Vannes to the mouth of the Garonne. What

Aluet e means is unknown, but Jeu de Vache refers to the picture of

a cow traditional y depicted on the Two of cups. In fact the game

employs a highly idiosyncratic 48-card pack with Spanish suitmarks

of swords ( ), batons ( ), cups ( ) and coins ( ), and ranks of Ace,

King (Roi), Cavalier (Chevalier, al four depicted as female), Valet,

and numerals 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2, the most important of which bear

pictures from which their various nicknames are derived. The

fol owing is based on several sources, none of which is complete,

and no two of which agree in every detail.

Preliminaries Four players sit crosswise in partnerships and play to

the left. A game is five deals.

Object The unusual aim is for both members of a partnership to

play in such a way as to ensure that one of them wins more tricks

than any other single player.

Deal Deal nine cards each in batches of three and stack the rest, face

down.

Le chant (optional). If it is agreed to play ‘with singing’, the

fol owing rule is fol owed. After the deal and before the play, each

in turn announces whether he is wil ing for the remaining cards to

be dealt. If al agree, six each are dealt, in threes, to eldest and to

dealer’s partner. Each of them then examines his hand and makes

six discards face down before eldest leads.

Rank of cards The eight highest individual cards, together with their

French-suit equivalents, their names, and the actions recognized as

signal ing their possession, are:

These are fol owed in order by A-R(K)-C(Q)-V(J)-9-8-7-6-5-4-3

without distinction of suit. That is, al Aces are equal in value and

beat Kings, which are equal in value and beat Cavaliers, and so on.

Of these, the first four are cal ed les moyennes and the remainder

les inférieures. Only two each of the Nines and Threes are inferiors,

the others being luet es or doubles.

Play Eldest leads first. Each in turn thereafter may play any card

Play Eldest leads first. Each in turn thereafter may play any card

they please, without necessarily fol owing suit. The trick is taken by

the highest card, as explained above, and the winner of each trick

leads to the next. If there is a tie for highest, no one wins the trick:

it is said to have ‘gone of ’ (être pourrie) and is thrown away, the

next lead being made by whoever led to the tied trick. A trick

containing a luet e or double cannot, of course, be tied.

Score One game point goes to the side of the player who won most

tricks individual y, or, if tied, who took that number first.

Mordienne (gadzooks) This is an optional but commonly played

extra. If a player thinks he can not only win a majority of tricks, but

do so by winning them in unbroken succession up to and including

the last trick (the ninth), having previously taken none, he may

signal his intention to his partner by biting his lip, preferably when

neither opponent is looking. If his partner nods agreement, the

bidder announces Mordienne (an obsolete exclamation equivalent

to Gadzooks!), thereby commit ing himself to this feat, which is

beaten if any of the last successive tricks are tied. Mordienne carries

a score of 2 points, which goes to the bidder if successful or to the

opponents if not. If this optional bid is admit ed, the target score is

set at 10 instead of 5 points. In some circles it is not bid but merely

scored if it occurs, and I am told that this is now the commonest

practice. In some, it may be declared by the bidder without

reference to his partner. In some, it scores 1 point for each of any

number of last tricks won in succession, with a bonus of 1 for

winning al nine, making 10 in al .

Don’t forget…

Play to the left (clockwise) unless otherwise stated.

Eldest or Forehand means the player to the left of the dealer

in left-handed games, to the right in right-handed games.

T = Ten, p = players, pp = in fixed partnerships, c = cards,

T = Ten, p = players, pp = in fixed partnerships, c = cards,

✝ = trump,

= Joker.

4 Hearts family

These are games in which your aim is to avoid taking tricks, or, at

least, tricks containing penalty cards.

This is not as easy as it sounds. When everyone else is trying to

force you to take one, you soon discover that it’s not enough just to

have a vaguely ‘bad hand’ for a positive bid: what you need is a

positively good hand for a negative bid. Here Twos and Threes are

as valuable as Aces and Kings are in Bridge, and middling ranks like

Sevens and Eights not just feeble, as in Bridge, but a positive

danger.

It takes a particular kind of card-sense to play wel a game like

Hearts. Where the object is to avoid penalty cards, the required

knack is to play your high cards when they are unlikely to win

penalties, and to choose just the right point at which to lose the

lead and not be forced into taking any more.

Hearts (Black Lady, etc.) 3-6 players (4 best), 52 cards You don’t call playing Bridge or Hearts on Saturday night a very Bohemian sort

of life, do you? Damn it all, I do that myself !

Carter Dickson, She Died a Lady (1943)

This classic trick-avoidance game has become a popular family and

informal game throughout Europe and America, in the USA first

recorded as appearing in the 1880s. In its purest form, the aim is

just to avoid winning tricks containing hearts. Each player counts a

penalty point for each heart taken in tricks, and the winner is the

player with the lowest score when one player reaches a critical

player with the lowest score when one player reaches a critical

maximum of penalties. Probably no one, however, plays the purest

form. Described here is the current American variety derived from

an early twentieth-century development cal ed Black Lady Hearts.

There are many local variations, but the fol owing four-player game

contains probably the best balance of common features and may

reasonably be regarded as standard.

Preliminaries Four players receive 13 cards dealt singly from a 52-

card pack ranking AKQJT98765432. The game ends when at least

one player reaches a total of 100 penalties.

Object After an exchange of cards, 13 tricks are played at no

trump and the aim is to avoid winning tricks containing hearts or

Q. Alternatively, you may aim to capture al 14 penalty cards (a

slam, or ‘hit ing the moon’), but need not announce this

beforehand.

Exchange Each player first passes three cards face down to his

left-hand neighbour and receives the same number from his right.

On the second deal, cards are passed to the right and received from

the left. On the third they are passed between players sit ing

opposite each other. On the fourth, there is no exchange, the hands

being played as dealt. The same sequence is repeated thereafter.

Players may not pick up the cards passed to them until they have

passed their own three on. There is no restriction on which cards

may be passed.

Play Whoever holds 2 leads it to the first trick. Players must

fol ow suit if possible, otherwise may play any card. The trick is

taken by the highest card of the suit led, and the winner of each

trick leads to the next. There are no trumps. Two special rules

apply.

You may not play a penalty card to the first trick, unless you

have no choice.

You may not lead a heart until the suit has been ‘broken’ by

somebody having discarded one to a previous trick. Exception:

You may do so if you have nothing else, or your only