Linger Longer (a.k.a. Sift Smoke)
Linger Longer, also known as Sift Smoke, is, in many ways, the opposite of Rolling Stone. In that game, the goal is to run out of cards, and failing to follow suit causes you to gain cards in your hand. In Linger Longer, players get cards from the stock as a reward for winning the trick, because they want to gain the most cards and be the last to run out!
Linger Longer is best for three to six players. It is one of the simplest games that involves a trump suit, making it an excellent choice for introducing newer players to games with trumps.
Object of Linger Longer
The object of Linger Longer is to, well, linger longer than anyone else—be the last player with cards in your hand.
Setup
Linger Longer is played with one standard 52-card deck of playing cards. We hope that you’re using Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards for your game.
Shuffle and deal to each player the same number of cards as there are players (e.g. for a four-player game, deal four cards, etc.) Place the remainder of the deck in the center of the table, forming the stock. The dealer exposes the last card dealt to them; the suit of this card establishes the trump suit for the hand.
Game play
The player to the dealer’s left leads to the first trick. The player to their left must then play a card of the suit led, if possible; otherwise, they may play any card they wish. This continues around the table to the left. When everyone has played to the trick, the player who contributed the highest card of the trump suit, or the highest card of the suit led if there was no trump, wins the trick. Cards rank in their usual order, with aces high. The player that won the trick (and nobody else) draws one card from the stock, and the cards played to the trick are moved to a discard pile.
The game continues in this fashion until players begin to run out of cards. As they do, they drop out of the game. If the stock runs out before the game is decided, shuffle the discard pile to form a new stock. When all players but one run out of cards, that player is the winner. In the event that multiple players run out of cards on the same trick, the winner of the trick also wins the game.
If multiple hands are to be played, it might be desirable to keep score. If so, the winner of the hand scores one point for each card remaining in their hand.
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