The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (50 page)

1. King. For taking 1K, pay 4 chips.

2. Hairy Ape. Like King, but: Players fan their cards face down

and hold them up back to front so that each can only identify

those held by opponents. Each in turn plays a card at random

face up to a trick. If two or more are of the same suit, the

highest of them takes the trick, otherwiseeachcard ‘takes’ only

itself. Whoeverwins K,theeponymous Hairy Ape, pays 10

chips to the pot (or 4, in some circles). If both King and Hairy

Ape bids are played (rare), then U is the Hairy Ape.

3. Acorn Unter (Club Jack). The player sit ing opposite the one

who captures aU ( J) pays 4 chips.

4. Seventh Trick. Whoever wins it pays 4 chips. The eighth is not

played.

5. Mindenrosz(Al Bad). Al the above applied simultaneously,

except that there is no reward for taking al the tricks or al

the hearts.

6. Vonat ([Railway-]Train). An adding-up game. Each in turn

plays a card to the table and announces the running total of

al cards so far played, counting each Ace 11, King 4,

Ober/Queen 3, Unter/Jack 2, Ten 10, others zero. The first to

reach or exceed 25 adds 1 chip to the pot, likewise 2 for 50, 3

for 75, 4 for 100.

7. Kvart (Quart). A going-out game. Cards rank cyclical y, Aces

and Sevens being consecutive. (Variant: Aces are stops.) The

leader plays any card, and the next three consecutively higher

cards of the same suit are played by whoever holds them. The

last player turns this quasi-trick face down and starts a new

one with anycard. Fol ow the same procedure, ending each

trick when no more can be played to it. Whoever first runs

out of cards cal s, ‘Stop!’ and receives 1 chip for each card left

in each opponent’s hand.

King

King

(3p, 36c) A Russian game, col ected by Anthony Smith from a St

Petersburger, whose family traces it back to the 1920s. Cards rank

AKQJT9876. Deal twelve each. Six negative games are fol owed by

six positive. Eldest leads. 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.

1. No tricks. Score –6 per trick.

2. No hearts. Score –8 per heart. You may not lead hearts if you

have an alternative.

3. No men. Each King and Jack taken scores –9. (Variant Jacks

only, –18 each.)

4. No Queens. Each Queen taken scores –18.

5. No last. The last two tricks score –36 each.

6. No King. Taking it scores –72. You may never lead hearts

unless forced, and must play K as soon as you cannot fol ow

suit or when A has been played ahead of you to a heart

lead.

Deals 7 to 12 fol ow exactly the same sequence but with plus-

points instead of minus, e.g. +6 per trick won, +8 per heart won,

and so on. In positive Hearts and King you may stil not lead a heart

unless you have no choice, but in the last deal you may play K at

any legal opportunity.

Yeralash (Medley) is an optional seventh and fourteenth game. In

the seventh, al penalties operate simultaneously, and in the

fourteenth al bonuses likewise. This may be the origin of the next

game.

Pese Kate

(‘Five Levels’) (4p, 52c) Albanian equivalent of Lorum, described

by Franco Pratesi in The Playing-Card (XXVI, 3). Play either cut-

by Franco Pratesi in The Playing-Card (XXVI, 3). Play either cut-

throat or crosswise in partnerships. Deal thirteen each. Cards rank

AKQJT98765432. Four deals:

1. Each trick taken counts +2 points.

2. Each heart taken counts –2 points.

3. Each Queen taken counts –4 points.

4. The K taken counts –16 points.

Traditional y, this four-deal sequence is played five times

(whence the name), so the winner is the player or side with the

highest score after 20 deals.

Tëtka (Tyotka)

4 players, 52 cards

Compendium games of the Hearts family often include a deal that

incorporates in one go al the penalty features of the preceding

deals. Tetka is Russian for ‘Auntie’, and refers to the undesired

Queen. Source: Mike Arnautov.

Preliminaries Four players use 52 cards, ranking AKQJT98765432.

Play to the left. A game is any agreed multiple of four deals.

Deal Deal thirteen each in ones and reveal the last card before

adding it to dealer’s hand. This is the bum card, its suit is the bum

suit for that deal, and its rank is the bum rank.

Object To avoid incurring any of the fol owing nine penalties:

1. Taking a Queen in a trick (1 penalty each = 4).

1. Taking a Queen in a trick (1 penalty each = 4).

2. An extra penalty for taking the Queen of the bum suit

(‘Tetka’).

3. Taking the bum card in a trick.

4. Winning the ‘bumth’ trick (i.e. the first if the bum card an Ace,

the second if a Two, and so on).

5. Winning the last trick. (If the bum card is a King, this is also

the bumth trick, and so counts 2 penalties.)

6. Winning the greatest number of tricks. (Tie-break by the

greatest number of cards of the bum suit, or, if stil tied, the

highest-ranking card ofthat suit.)

Play Eldest leads. 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.

Score One penalty point per penalty incurred. Note that several

penalties may fal to the same trick. To take the most extreme and

unlikely example, if a Queen is the bum card, and a player leads a

Queen at trick 12, and everyone discards a Queen because unable to

fol ow suit, the total number of penalties in that trick wil be seven:

2 for Auntie, 1 for each other Queen, 1 for taking the bum card, and

1 for the bumth trick.

Reversis

4 players, 48 cards

Modern Hoyles contain Reversis, but no one ever seems to play it.

‘Cavendish’ (Henry Jones), Card Essays, 1879

Reversis (no relation to the board game Reversi) is the probable

ancestor of the Hearts family and was one of the great games of

continental Europe from the seventeenth to the nineteenth

centuries. It is supposedly so cal ed because the aim of avoiding

tricks in general and penalty cards in particular is the reverse of

conventional trick games, though the name also denotes an

exceptional slam bid – like ‘hit ing the moon’ in Hearts – which

itself reverses the practice of the rest of the game. Reversis was long

thought to be of Spanish origin because played to the right, with a

48-card pack lacking Tens, and from such technical terms as

Quinola (name of a seventeenth-century Spanish admiral) and

espagnolet e. But these are later additions, and the original game,

first cited as Reversin in France in 1601, was played with the ful

52-card pack. More probably it originated in Italy, where they stil

play a negative variety of Tresset e under the name Rovescino.

Details dif er from source to source. The fol owing is based on an

article by John McLeod in The Playing-Card. PreliminariesFour

play, to the right, with a 48-card pack ranking AKQJ98765432 (no

Tens) and the equivalent of at least 100 chips each. A ful set of

Reversis chips comprised 36 units cal ed fiches (Anglicized to ‘fish’),

24 counters worth 6 fish each, and 6 contracts worth8 counters

each, total 468 fish.

The pool Before play begins, a pool is formed by the contribution

of 5 chips from each player. At each deal the dealer (only) adds 5

chips to the pool, bringing it to 25 at the start of the first deal.

Deal Deal eleven cards to each player in batches of 4-3-4, plus a

twelfth to the dealer, and finish by dealing one card face down in

front of each non-dealer. Dealer discards any unwanted card face

down. Each other player may either make a discard and then take

the card in front of him as a replacement, or look at his undealt

card without taking it, but not both. This leaves everyone with

eleven cards, and four on the table constituting a talon.

Object Tricksare played and the mainobjectistotakeasfewcard-

points as possible: this is cal ed winning the party. For this purpose