Standard casino chip values
This chip color scheme is used in many U.S. casinos, for both poker and blackjack. We recommend using it in your home games too, so that players familiar with the standard casino chip values instantly understand your chip breakdown. (If your games don’t get big enough to need $100 chips, don’t fret—just make the white chips 1¢ each, and the black chips instantly become $1 chips.)
You can print this image as a reference sheet for players that have never played with standard chip values, or for those who are having trouble remembering them.
Solo Whist
Solo Whist is a trick-taking game for four players. Whereas Whist is a strategic partnership game, Solo Whist provides a more relaxed, accessible, non-partnership alternative.
Solo Whist gained popularity as a Whist alternative in the late 19th century. Solo Whist was particularly popular on the commuter rail of the era, where its structure made it possible for travelers to easily join and drop out of the game as they boarded or departed the train.
Although Solo Whist is sometimes just called Solo, there is another game by that name: Solo (Ombre), which derives from the French game Manille, rather than Whist.
Object of Solo Whist
The object of Solo Whist is to successfully estimate the strength of one’s hand and accurately place a bid for the hand. If one doesn’t successfully win the bidding, the object is to stop the winner from completing the bid.
Setup
Solo Whist is played with a standard 52-card deck. While you could use any manner of 52-card deck out there, if you want a deck that’s durable enough to last through any game, always use Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards.
Solo traditionally handles scoring through counters of some form, such as poker chips. If the players desire, each counter can be purchased in an initial buy-in and represent some amount of real money. Otherwise, the counters can serve as valueless MacGuffins. Score can also be kept with pencil and paper.
Shuffle and deal thirteen cards to each player in sets of three, with the thirteenth card being dealt by itself. The dealer’s thirteenth card, the last card in the deck, is turned face-up. The suit of this card is considered the default suit for this hand.
Game play
Bidding
Each hand begins with a bidding round, with the player to the dealer’s left opening the bidding. Players may make any of the following bids, from lowest to highest:
- Prop (1 credit): Player makes a proposal to join in a temporary alliance with any other player in an attempt to capture eight tricks. So long as no higher bid has been made, any other player may respond with “Cop”, accepting the proposal and joining the alliance, should the bid not be overcalled. The default suit becomes trump.
- Solo (1 credit): The player will win five tricks, playing alone. The default suit becomes trump.
- Misère (2 credits): The player will lose all thirteen tricks, playing alone. There is no trump.
- Abundance (3 credits): The player will win nine tricks, playing alone. If the bid is successful, the player will name any suit desired as trump.
- Abundance in Trump (3 credits): The same as an abundance, but using the default suit as trump.
- Misère Ouverte (4 credits): The same as a misère, but the player must play with their hand exposed after the first trick.
- Slam (6 credits): The player will win all thirteen tricks, playing alone. There is no trump, and the player leads to the first trick.
A bid may only be overcalled by a higher bid. Players may also elect to pass; upon passing, a player cannot rejoin in the bidding for this hand. (There is one exception: if the player to the dealer’s left passes, the next player bids Prop, and the remaining players pass, the player to the left of the dealer has the option to call “Cop”.) Bidding continues as long as necessary: until there has been both a Prop and a Cop, or any higher bid, and all other players pass.
If all four players pass, the hand is abandoned and a new hand is dealt by the same dealer. If a player bids Prop and no other player accepts the bid by calling “Cop,” the bidder has the option to change their bid to any higher bid. If they decline, the deal is abandoned.
The successful bidder or bidders become the declarer(s), and the other players become the defenders. The defenders’ goal is to prevent the declarers from fulfilling their contract.
Play of the hand
After bidding concludes, the dealer takes their thirteenth card into their hand, and the player to the dealer’s left leads to the first trick, unless the bid was slam, in which case the declarer leads. Players must follow suit unless they are unable, in which case they may play any card, including a trump. Tricks are won by the player who played the highest card of the suit led, or if the trick contains a trump, the highest trump. Collected tricks are not added to the player’s hand, but are placed face-down in a won-tricks pile in front of the player, with succeeding tricks placed at right angles to one another to allow them to be counted later. (If the contract is Prop, the declarers may stack their tricks in a single pile in front of one of the partners, rather than maintaining separate stacks).
After the first trick is concluded, but before the second trick begins, the declarer must spread their hand face-up if the contract is Misère Ouverte.
When all thirteen tricks have been played out, the declarer counts their tricks to determine whether the contract was made or broken. If it was made, all defenders pay the declarer the amount of their contract (for a made Prop bid, a defender must pay one credit each to both of the declarers). If the declarer(s) failed, they must pay the amount of their contract to each defender. (If keeping score with pencil and paper, simply score the amount of the contract under each declarer if successful or under each defender if not successful.)
More chip counting exercises
If our first batch of chip counting exercises was no problem, here’s five more to test your chip-counting skills! Are you good enough at counting chips to quickly calculate the correct totals?
You can click the images to zoom in. Each stack shown contains the same number of chips as the stack splashed next to it. The chips use the standard denominations:
- Yellow—50¢
- White—$1
- Red—$5
- Green—$25
- Black—$100
- Purple—$500
This time, we’re including some exercises using a chip rack. Each row of chips shown in the rack represents a full tube of 20 chips. Don’t forget to include these in your total!
Exercises
Answers
- 6 × 500 = 3000, 11 × 100 = 1100, 16 × 25 = 400, 60 × 5 = 300, 25 × 1 = 25, 3 × 50¢ = 1.50. 3000 + 1100 + 400 + 300 + 25 + 1.50 = 4826.50.
- 2 × 500 = 1000, 28 × 100 = 2800, 26 × 25 = 650, 84 × 5 = 420, 32 × 1 = 32, 9 × 50¢ = 4.50. 1000 + 2800 + 650 + 420 + 32 + 4.50 = 4906.50.
- 3 × 500 = 1500, 11 × 100 = 1100, 20 × 25 = 500, 19 × 5 = 95, 21 × 1 = 21. 1500 + 1100 + 500 + 95 + 21 = 3216.
- 4 × 100 = 400, 3 × 25 = 75, 16 × 5 = 80, 2 × 50¢ = 1. 400 + 75 + 80 + 1 = 556.
- 5 × 500 = 2500, 12 × 100 = 1200, 15 × 25 = 375, 46 × 5 = 230, 17 × 1 = 17, 7 × 50¢ = 3.50. 2500 + 1200 + 375 + 230 + 17 + 3.50 = 4325.50.
Durak
Durak is a Russian game for two to five players that is popular in the countries that once made up the USSR. Several sources call it Russia’s most popular card game, and John McLeod even asserts “It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that every Russian who plays cards knows this game.”1 Many variants exist, including partnership versions and versions for six or more players. The individual-play version is described here.
Object of Durak
The object of Durak is to avoid being the last one with cards left in their hand, who is labeled the durak (дура́к, meaning fool or idiot).
Setup
Durak is played with a diminished deck of only 36 cards. Starting from a deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards, remove all of the 2s through 5s, leaving only aces through 6s in all four suits.
Shuffle and deal six cards to each player. Turn up the first card of the deck stub; the suit of this card becomes the trump suit. Place the remainder of the deck on top of this card at a ninety-degree angle, forming the stock. Despite the fact that it is exposed, the turned-up card is the last card of the stock and will be the final card to be drawn.
Game play
The player holding the lowest trump in play serves as the first attacker, and the player to their left becomes the first defender. The attacker begins by playing any card that they wish face-up. The defender then attempts to defeat this card by playing a higher card of the same suit (aces are high), or any trump card, irrespective of rank. This card is played atop the attacking card in question. Any other player, including the initial attacker, may now contribute to the attack by playing another card of the same rank as any of the cards face-up on the table. The defender must then defend against this card. This continues until the defense is abandoned or defender successfully fends off all attacks, as described below.
The defense is abandoned when the defender is unable or unwilling to defeat one of the cards they were attacked with. When this happens, they collect all of the face-up cards and add them to their hand. Additionally, other players may give the attacker any cards from their hands that would have been possible to add to the attack. The player to the defender’s left then becomes the attacker for the next hand.
The defense is successful when:
- The defender has defeated all attacking cards and nobody is willing to play further attacking cards.
- The defender depletes their hand.
- Six attack cards have been played and defeated.
When the defense succeeds, all cards on the table are collected and discarded. The defender becomes the attacker in the next turn.
After each turn, players draw back up to six cards, in the following order:
- The attacker.
- Any other players that assisted the attacker by playing cards.
- The defender.
When the stock is depleted, play continues with no further draws, players short on cards or not. At this point, any player who runs out of cards simply sits out for the rest of the hand.
Game play continues until only one player remains with cards. This player becomes the durak. (If two players run out of the cards at the same time, with one player attacking with their final card and the other player successfully defending against it, the hand is a draw and the durak from the previous hand keeps the title.) The durak is responsible for collecting the cards, shuffling, and dealing the next hand. The player to the left of the durak becomes the first attacker in the next round.
Sources
- McLeod, John. “Podkidnoy Durak“. pagat.com. Version as of 2014-08-12, accessed 2015-04-30.
Celebrating one year of blogging
At the end of last April, we posted for the first time on our brand-spanking-new blog, sharing the rules to Thirteen. Over the past year, we’ve been pretty busy—we’ve posted the rules to 48 different card games! You can find a list of them on our new Game Rules Index page, which you can access at any time from the link on the blog’s right sidebar.
Here’s to another year of blogging!
The gambler’s fallacy
The gambler’s fallacy is the mistaken belief that after a series of random events occur, a certain outcome is “due” to happen, so that the series of outcomes is corrected to better match the odds of each outcome.
The simplest example is a coin flip. A perfectly fair coin will have a 50% chance of landing on heads and a 50% chance of landing on tails. It is unlikely, but possible, for the coin to land on heads five or even ten times in a row. If a coin lands on heads ten times in a row, what are the odds for the eleventh flip? Someone operating under the gambler’s fallacy would say that tails is almost certain to come up—but the odds are exactly the same; 50% for tails and 50% for an eleventh heads.
Another place where it’s easy to see the gambler’s fallacy is on the roulette wheel. A modern roulette wheel has eighteen red spaces, eighteen black spaces, and two green spaces. The odds are approximately 47% for red, 47% for black, and 5% for green. In 1913, an incident occurred at the Monte Carlo Casino where the ball landed on a black space twenty-six times in a row. Gamblers rushed to bet millions of francs on red, believing a bet on red to be almost a sure thing after such a long string of spins landing on black. Most of this money was lost to the casino.
Keep in mind that the gambler’s fallacy only really applies when each trial (a spin, a coin flip, and hand of cards, etc.) is an independent event. This is not always true in card games; the odds will vary as cards are distributed from the deck. In Blackjack, for instance, as aces are dealt from the shoe and discarded, blackjacks become progressively less likely. But it remains true that you are not “due” a win after any number of losing hands, meaning that betting systems that rely on this, like the martingale, are fundamentally flawed.
Another caveat is that the fallacy only applies in situations that are truly random. In the case of something like the stock market, there are human factors at play, meaning that outcomes are not based purely on probability alone.
President
President (also known under a number of colorful titles, such as Bum, Scumbag, and Asshole) is a game of Asian origin, bearing some similarity to Thirteen. Like Thirteen, the object of the game is to get rid of all of your cards, and play progresses with each player playing progressively higher ranks of cards (some group them together as climbing games). President has the novel feature of assigning each player a rank based on how well they did in the last round and having them rearrange themselves according to the ranking.
President is best for three to seven players.
Object of President
The object of President is to avoid being the last player to hold cards.
Setup
President uses the standard 52-card deck. You can use any deck of cards, but if you use Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards, you’ll definitely appear a lot more presidential.
You will need to establish a rank system, with one rank for each player. The top rank is something suitably impressive or positive and the last rank is typically something derogatory. One example for a six-player game would be President, Vice President, Governor, Lt. Governor, Citizen, Asshole. You could also use military ranks, ranks of nobility, job titles from your workplace—use your imagination. For the purposes of illustration, we will use the ranks just mentioned whenever the ranking system comes up.
You also need to establish chairs for each rank. The President should have the nicest and most comfortable chair, with the next-nicest sitting to the left and being occupied by the Vice President, and so on around the table to the Asshole, whose chair is to the President’s right and is the most unpleasant seat available—like a wooden crate, a backless stool, or the like. Some players also prefer to have silly hats that the holder of each rank is required to wear.
Shuffle and deal the cards as far as they will go. Some players may receive more cards than others. They’ll just have to deal with that, though.
Card ranking
President uses the same unconventional card ranking that Thirteen does. Aces rank high, but twos rank even higher than the ace. That means that the lowest card in play is the three, giving us a rank progression of (high) 2, A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 (low). Unlike in Thirteen, however, suits do not matter.
Game play
The player with the 3♠ goes first. That player plays it face up to the table, either singly, or with any number of additional threes. The next player to the left plays the same number of cards of a higher rank (e.g. if the first player laid down a pair of 3s, the next player would have to lay down a pair of 4s or higher). The number of cards must match exactly with what the first player set down (so a pair must be followed by a pair, and not three of a kind, etc.). If a player cannot or doesn’t want to play on a particular turn, they pass, although they can still elect to play the next time it’s their turn.
Each player continues playing cards of ascending rank until all players pass except the last person to play. This player is then permitted to lead off, playing any number of cards of the same rank that they choose to.
The game continues in this manner until one player runs out of cards. This player is declared to be President, and play continues with the player to the left, as normal. This President-elect takes no further part in the hand. As more and more players run out of cards, they too receive titles and sit out of the game. Finally, the last player to run out of cards gets the last good rank, and the player stuck with cards becomes the Asshole.
Players now “take office” for the next hand, rearranging themselves to sit in the seats assigned to their new rank. The Asshole is required to perform the game-running duties for the next hand, including clearing the cards away from the last hand, shuffling, and dealing. The Asshole is also required to surrender their highest-ranked card to the President, who chooses any card they wish from their hand and passes it back to the Asshole. The next round begins, with the President playing first, leading with any card they wish.
See also
Now on Instagram!
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Chip counting exercises
So you know the basics of how to count chips...but now you just need practice! Here are five chip counting problems to solve. How quickly can you get the correct totals?
You can click the images to zoom in. Each stack shown contains the same number of chips as the stack splashed next to it. The chips use the standard denominations:
- Yellow—50¢
- White—$1
- Red—$5
- Green—$25
- Black—$100
- Purple—$500
Exercises
Answers
- 8 × 100 = 800, 8 × 25 = 200, 6 × 5 = 30, 3 × 1 = 3. 800 + 200 + 30 + 3 = 1033.
- 2 × 500 = 1000, 6 × 100 = 600, 1 × 25 = 25, 4 × 5 = 20. 1000 + 600 + 25 + 20 = 1645.
- 3 × 100 = 300, 2 × 5 = 10, 2 × 1 = 2, 3 × 50¢ = 1.50. 300 + 10 + 2 + 1.50 = 313.50.
- 5 × 25 = 125, 3 × 5 = 15, 9 × 1 = 9. 25 + 15 + 9 = 149.
- 13 × 100 = 1300, 5 × 25 = 125, 4 × 5 = 20, 1 × 1 = 1. 1300 + 125 + 20 + 1 = 1446.
See also
Tumblr giveaway
Do you have an account on Tumblr? We are running a giveaway on our blog over there from now until April 30! You could win a free set of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards, a set of cut cards, and, if you follow us on Tumblr, one of our Mini Chip Count Boards!
All you have to do to enter is reblog this post on your Tumblr account! Good luck!
