Polignac
Polignac is a French trick-taking game for three to six players. In many respects, it is a rather straightforward example of the trick-taking genre. However, much like Hearts, the aim is to avoid taking certain cards, in this case, jacks. Watch out for the Polignac, the J♠. Capturing him is twice as bad as any other jack!
Object of Polignac
The object of Polignac is to avoid taking tricks containing jacks, especially the J♠.
Setup
To play Polignac, you’ll need a 30- or 32-card deck of cards, depending on how many you’re playing with. Starting from a standard 52-card deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards, remove all of the 2s through 6s. If you’re playing with any number besides four players, also remove the black 7s. You’ll be left with a deck of aces through 8s in each of the four suits, making 28 cards. Then you’ll also have either the two red 7s, making 30 cards, or all four of them, making 32 cards.
You also need something to keep score with. Pencil and paper works well, but tokens will also work. You’ll need at least ten tokens for each player.
Shuffle and deal the entire deck out, as far as it will go. Each player should have the same number of cards.
Card ranking
Polignac uses a somewhat unusual card ranking. The ace ranks below the jack and above the 10. This leads to a full card ranking of (high) K, Q, J, A, 10, 9, 8, 7 (low).
Game play
Game play starts with the player to the dealer’s left. They may lead any card they wish to the first trick. Each player in turn plays a card to the trick, following suit if able, and playing any card they wish if they can’t.
After everyone has played, whoever played the highest card of the suit led wins the trick. They take the cards and place them into a won-tricks pile in front of them. Then, they lead to the next trick.
Scoring
After enough tricks have been played that the players’ hands are exhausted, the hand is over. Players look through their won-trick piles for the four jacks. Capturing the Polignac, the J♠, is worth two points. Each other jack is worth one point.
Game play continues until at least one player has scored ten or more points. Whoever has the lowest score at that point wins.
Lórum
Lórum is a card game for four players. Lórum is a great example of a compendium game, rolling seven different styles of game play into one game. In Lórum’s case, the first four hands are played as a trick-taking game. Then, it’s followed up with a point-counting game. The two final hands are Stops games. Then, the cycle begins anew, with a new dealer.
Lórum originated in Hungary at the very beginning of the 20th century. It is the oldest member of a group of compendium games that all involve avoiding tricks. Other games likely descended from Lórum are the French game Barbu and the Russian game King.
Object of Lórum
The object of Lórum is to have the most chips after 28 hands. On some hands, players collect chips by avoiding taking certain cards, which vary from hand to hand. On others, the goal is to run out of cards first.
Setup
To play Lórum, you’ll need a 32-card deck of cards. You can easily make such a deck out of a sturdy deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards by removing all the 6s through 2s. You’ll be left with a deck that has only aces, face cards, and 10s through 7s in each of the four suits.
Lórum is typically played with hard scoring, so you’ll need a bunch of tokens or chips. An amount of real money may be attached to each chip, if desired. If so, each player purchases however many chips they’d like to start the game with. Otherwise, distribute the same number of chips to each player.
Determine the first dealer randomly. This dealer will deal the first seven hands, then pass to the next dealer, who will deal the next seven, and so on. Shuffle and deal eight cards to each player, exhausting the whole pack.
Game play
A game of Lórum cycles through seven different types of hands. Several of these are trick-taking games. The player to the dealer’s left leads to the first trick. Each player, proceeding clockwise, plays one card to the trick. They must follow suit if able; otherwise, they can play any card they wish. Whoever played the highest card of the suit led wins the trick; they take the cards and place them in a face-down won-tricks pile in front of them. That player then leads to the next trick.
Cards rank in their usual order, with aces high.
The seven hands
1. No hearts
The first hand is played as a trick-taking game. Hearts cannot be led to the first trick.
After all eight tricks have been played, each player counts up the number of hearts in their won-tricks pile. What happens next depends on how many players captured hearts:
- All players took at least one heart: For each heart captured, a player pays one chip to the pot.
- Three players took hearts, and one didn’t: For each heart captured, a player pays one chip directly to the person who didn’t take any hearts. The player who didn’t take any hearts will collect eight chips from their opponents.
- Two players took hearts, two didn’t: For each heart captured, a player pays one chip. The two players who didn’t take hearts each get four of these chips.
- One player took all eight hearts: Each player who didn’t take hearts has to pay the one who took the hearts eight chips! They’ll end up receiving a total of 24 chips from their opponents.
2. Queens
In this trick-taking hand, players must pay when they capture queens. Capturing the Q♥ costs four points, the Q♦ three, the Q♠ two, and the Q♣ one.
- All players took one queen: Players pay into the pot.
- Three players took queens, and one didn’t: The players who took queens pay the person who didn’t directly. The player who didn’t take any queens will collect ten chips from their opponents.
- Two players took hearts, two didn’t: The two players who captured queens pay, and the ten chips are split between the two players who didn’t take queens.
- One player took all four queens: Each player who didn’t take queens has to pay the one who took the queens ten chips! The player who captured all four queens gets a total of 30 chips from their opponents.
3. No tricks
A trick-taking hand where the aim is to avoid taking any tricks at all. Be sure to keep the tricks separate in the won-tricks pile by placing them atop each other at right angles to one another. Payments are made the same as on the no-hearts hand.
4. Hairy Ape
Players do not look at their cards as they’re being dealt. Instead, they pick their cards up and hold them with their backs facing them. This means that they can only see their opponents’ hands and not their own. Players then play a faintly ridiculous trick-taking game. If at least one of the cards played follows suit to the lead, the trick is captured by the highest card of the suit led, as normal. Otherwise, each player captures their own card. Whoever captures the K♥ pays four chips into the pot.
For a more serious game, hold the cards facing toward you and just play a normal trick-taking game, avoiding capturing the K♥.
In any case, once the K♥ has been captured, there’s no point in playing the hand out. The deal can be abandoned at that point.
5. Train
For this hand, aces count eleven each, kings count four, queens are worth three, jacks two, and 10s one. The remaining ranks (9s, 8s, and 7s) have no value. The player to the dealer’s left plays any card they wish, and call out its value. The next player to the left plays a card, calling out the combined total of their card and the one before it, and so on.
The player who makes the running total greater than or equal to 25 must pay a chip into the pot. The player who brings the count to 50 pays two chips, to 75 three chips, and to 100 four chips.
6. Quart
The player to the dealer’s left plays any card they wish. The player who holds the next higher card of the same suit plays it, regardless of turn order. When an ace is played, it is followed by the 7 of that suit. This continues until either four cards have been played, or play cannot continue because the card continuing the sequence has already been played. When this happens, the cards are turned face down, and the last person to play may play whatever they like, starting a new sequence.
The hand continues until someone runs out of cards. Each of their opponents pays that player one chip for every card they hold.
7. Domino
The player to the dealer’s left begins by playing any card they want. The next player must then play a card of the same suit either one rank below or one rank above the starter, placing it to the left or the right of the starter respectively. They may also play another card of the same rank as the starter, placing it below the starter to begin a new row. Game play continues in this manner, with the players laying the deck onto the table in a grid-like layout. If a player has no valid card to play on their turn, they pass.
When a player runs out of cards, each of their opponents pays one chip into the pot for every card they hold. The winning player then takes the entire pot.
The eighth hand onward
After playing seven hands with the same dealer, the deal passes to the left. The new dealer will then deal the next seven hands, starting with a no-hearts hand, and running through the above cycle. Then they pass the deck off to the next dealer, and so on. The game continues until all four players have dealt seven hands. Whichever player has the most chips at that point wins the game.
Tëtka
Tëtka (Russian for “auntie”) is a simple trick-taking game for four players. It falls in the same general category of “nullo games” that includes Hearts and Reversis. In all games of this group, the goal is to avoid taking certain cards. What makes Tëtka unique, though, is that those cards change from hand to hand. The last card dealt determines many of the cards that you want to dodge!
Object of Tëtka
The object of Tëtka is to avoid scoring points by avoiding taking certain cards in tricks.
Setup
Tëtka is played with one standard 52-card deck of playing cards, preferably Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards. (If you haven’t got yours yet, what’s the holdup?) You’ll also need something to keep score with, like pencil and paper, or a smartphone app designed for the purpose.
Shuffle and deal out the whole deck, thirteen cards to each player. The last card to be dealt, which goes to the dealer, is revealed to all of the players. Make note of its rank and suit—this card, the bum card, will determine many of the cards that are to be avoided!
Game play
The player to the dealer’s left goes first, playing any card they wish to start the first trick. Each other player, in turn going clockwise, then contributes one card to the trick. Players must follow suit if possible; otherwise, they may play any card. Whoever played the highest card of the suit led wins the trick. (Cards rank in their usual order, with aces high.) They collect all of the cards played to the trick and place them face-down into a won-tricks pile. (Each successive trick won should be placed at right angles to the previous one, to allow the number of tricks to be easily counted.) They then lead to the next trick.
This continues until thirteen tricks have been played, at which point the hand is over.
Penalties
Upon winning a trick, a player may score points if any of the following applies:
- It contains the bum card. Capturing the bum card scores the player one point.
- It contains Tëtka, the queen of the same suit as the bum card. (For example, if the bum card were a club, Tëtka would be the Q♣.) Taking Tëtka in a trick scores the player two points.
- It contains any other queen besides Tëtka. This scores the player one point for each queen captured.
- It is the trick corresponding to the rank of the bum card. That is, if the bum card is an ace, the first trick, if it is a 2, the second trick, and so on. Jacks correspond to the eleventh trick, queens to the twelfth, and kings to the thirteenth and final trick. Whichever player wins this trick scores one point.
- It is the thirteenth and final trick. Doing so scores that player one point. (Note that if the bum card is a king, the last trick is worth two points—once for being the last trick, and once for being the trick corresponding to the king.)
- At the end of the hand, the player won the largest number of tricks. This, too, scores the player one point. If there is a tie, the point is scored by whoever captured the largest number of cards of the same suit as the bum card. If there is still a tie, whichever player captured the highest card of that suit gets the point.
Multiple points can be scored on the same trick by an unlucky player!
Ending the game
Whichever player has the lowest number of points at the end of four hands (each player having had a chance to deal) wins the game. If a longer game is desired, establish a number of orbits (times the deal rotates around the table) after which the game will conclude.
Reversis
Reversis is an old trick-taking game for four players. In most trick-taking games, the goal is to capture as many cards as you can. In Reversis, however, you want to avoid taking the face cards and the aces! None of the other cards matter, although there is a special bonus for not winning a single trick. You can turn it on its head, however, and win every trick, which gets you even more!
Reversis is a very old game, appearing as early as 1601. By the 1870s, it was still being included in card game books, but was all but dead in terms of actively being played. Nevertheless, the game most likely served as the root of an entire family of trick-taking games where the goal was avoidance of certain cards. Today, the most well-known member of this family is Hearts, now considered a classic in its own right. In fact, most authors call the whole group of card-avoidance games the “Hearts family”, despite Reversis’s probable status as grandparent of most of these games.
Object of Reversis
The object of Reversis is to avoid capturing in tricks any aces or face cards. A secondary objective is to avoid taking any tricks, a feat called the espagnolette. Failing that, a player may aim to take all the tricks, which is called the reversis.
Setup
Reversis uses an unusual 48-card pack formed by taking a standard 52-card deck (like Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards) and stripping out all of the 10s. Additionally, you will need chips to keep score with. A traditional Reversis set included chips equal to 468 base units, denominated in 1, 6, and 48 units. You can probably get away with the easier to deal with 1 (white), 5 (red), and 25 (green) of most standard chip sets. Divide the chips up evenly; each player should start with at least 100 credits.
On the first hand, all players ante five credits to the pot, except for the dealer, who antes ten credits. Shuffle and deal eleven cards to each player. Then, deal one extra to your own hand, and one card face down in front of each player (but not part of their hand). This will exhaust the entire deck.
Game play
The exchange
Before play begins, the dealer discards any one card they wish from their hand. This brings them to the same eleven cards that the other players have.
The three other players have the right to discard one card from their hand, then draw the face-down card in front of them. They cannot look at this card before deciding whether to discard. If the player decides not to discard, they may look at the face-down card without putting it in their hand. All four unwanted cards (the dealer’s discard, the discards of any other player, and any cards not drawn by the players) are set aside to form the talon.
Play of the hand
Play proceeds much the same as it does in any other trick-taking game. The player to the dealer’s left goes first, leading any card they wish to the first trick. Each other player must play a card of the same suit if they can. Otherwise, they may play any card. The highest card of the suit led wins the trick.
Once a trick has been won, the player that won it places it face down in front of them in a separate won-tricks pile. The player that wins each trick then leads to the next one.
Special payments
Special payments usually occur whenever an ace or the J♥, which is known as Quinola, is played. These payments occur immediately, irrespective of who eventually wins the hand.
Aces
When able, a player will usually discard their ace when another suit they have no cards in is led, to avoid taking the ace in a trick. When this happens, the player who wins the trick containing the off-suit ace pays the person who played the ace one credit. If the ace in question is the A♦, the payment is increased to two credits.
However, other times person holding an ace will be forced to play it when that ace’s suit is led. In that case, the player who was forced to play the ace pays the person who led to the trick one credit. As before, if the A♦ is forced, the payment doubles to two credits.
It is rare that a player leads an ace, although it sometimes happens (usually because they unexpectedly won the lead for the last trick, and the ace was their last card). In this event, however, no payment is made immediately. When the winner of the hand is decided, that player may collect the appropriate amount (two credits for the A♦, one for any other ace) from the person who played the ace. However, if the winner of the hand does not explicitly request payment before the next hand is dealt, they forfeit their right to collect.
Quinola
When the Quinola (J♥) is played, much larger payments come into play. If the J♥ is played to a trick that was led by another suit, the player that wins the trick pays the person who played the J♥ five credits. The player that played the J♥ then also takes the entire pot! If there are multiple pots, as described below, the player takes only the most recently-formed pot. If there is only one pot and it is won, a new one must be formed. Each non-dealer must again ante five credits to form a new pot, with the dealer contributing ten credits.
When an opponent forces the player holding the J♥ to play it to a heart lead, the player holding the J♥ pays that opponent ten credits. Both of the other two opponents must pay the player who led to that trick five credits. Additionally, the person who played the J♥ must make a payment called a remise. The first remise is equal to amount of the first pot, and is added to that pot. The second remise is again the same size as the pot, but goes to form a second pot, which is kept separate from the first. The third remise forms the third pot, which is the same size as the second pot, and so on. When all of the pots have been won, and a new pot is formed by anteing, the remise procedure is restarted from the beginning.
An example of the remise process: the pot (Pot #1) contains 25 credits. A player must pay a 25-credit remise to it, increasing it to 50 credits. The dealer antes five credits to Pot #1 at the start of the next hand. On the next hand, if the pot is not taken, the remise is 55 credits, but this goes to form a new pot, Pot #2. The dealer of the next hand then antes to Pot #2, bringing it to 60 credits. If the pot is not taken on the third hand, the remise will be 60 credits, payable to Pot #3. Remember, when a player successfully dumps the J♥ on an non-heart trick, they always take the most recently formed pot (in this case, Pot #3).
If a player leads with the J♥, the eventual winner of the hand may collect ten credits from that player and five credits from the other two opponents. As with payments when aces are led, the winner must speak up before the next hand is dealt to collect their winnings! (Note that a player leading the J♥ may well be pulling off a reversis, as described below.)
Ending the hand
The hand ends when all eleven tricks have been played. Each player totals the value of the cards they captured. Aces are worth four points, kings are worth three, queens two, and jacks one. All other cards bear no value. The player with the fewest points is said to have won the party. The player with the least is said to have lost the party.
If there is a tie in points, the player with the fewest tricks takes precedence. If there’s still a tie, the dealer takes precedence, followed by the player to their left, and so on around the table. (Note that this procedure applies to both winning and losing the party.)
Once the winner and loser have been determined, the loser pays the winner. The amount of the payment is four chips, plus the point value of all of the cards in the talon. If the winner and loser are sitting across from each other, the required payment doubles.
The deal passes to the next player to the left. The dealer antes five credits to the most recently formed pot. None of the other players ante. Game play continues until some predetermined time or number of hands. Whoever has the most in chips at that point wins the game.
Special bids
There are two special bids that can occur whenever a player has a particularly good or bad hand. These are the reversis, in which a player tries to take all the tricks, and the espagnolette, when they try to lose all the tricks.
The reversis
When a player takes the first nine tricks, they are considered to be undertaking the reversis. This happens whether they want it to or not! At this point, any ace and Quinola payments that have already taken place are refunded. (This includes a player taking the pot.) For the rest of the hand, these payments are not made.
If the reversis player successfully takes all eleven tricks, they collect 32 credits from the player across from them, and 16 credits from the other two opponents. They also take the most recent pot if they played the J♥ during the first nine tricks.
Should one of the reversis player’s opponents take the tenth or eleventh trick, the reversis is said to be broken. The reversis player pays 64 credits to that opponent (if both the tenth and eleventh tricks were taken by opponents, only the winner of the tenth trick is paid off). If the reversis player played the J♥ during the first nine tricks, they must pay a remise. If the reversis was broken by the J♥ winning a trick, the reversis player pays only 54 credits.
The espagnolette
Before a player can even attempt the espagnolette, they must hold all four aces. Holding three aces and the J♥ also qualifies. To undertake the espagnolette, a player simply fails to follow suit when able at least once during the first nine tricks. (If a player takes no tricks but follows suit for the whole hand, it is not considered an espagnolette.) The espagnolette player must follow suit, if able, on the tenth and eleventh tricks.
Other than the ability to disregard the suit led, there is no real reward for successfully completing the espagnolette. The player will simply automatically win the party (even if other players took no tricks) and the typical five credits for successfully discarding their aces. If they held the J♥ and three aces, they will win the party, plus the payments for discarding the three aces, plus the payments and pot for discarding the J♥.
If a player going for the espagnolette takes a trick, they are considered to have automatically lost the party. Additionally, they must pay back double the amount each player paid them for aces and the J♥. If they won a pot, they must return it and pay a misere.
Additionally, a player is considered to have lost the espagnolette if another player makes the reversis. In this case, the espagnolette player must pay the full 64-credit sum due to the player making the reversis. No other player is required to pay a thing. Should the player abandon the espagnolette in order to break the reversis, there is no penalty for the failed espagnolette, as the broken reversis preempts all other payments.
Hearts
Hearts is a classic game for four players. Unlike most card games, Hearts works on golf rules—the player with the lowest amount of points is the winner. Winning is generally done by avoidance of certain cards that score points—namely, the hearts, after which the game is named, and also the ultimate old maid, the Queen of Spades.
Hearts received a boost in popularity in the 1990s because Microsoft included a computerized version of it in its Windows operating system.
Object of Hearts
The object of the game is to have the lowest score at the end of the game by avoiding the thirteen Hearts and the Q♠. Or, collect absolutely everything and watch your opponents suffer.
Setup
You will need scorekeeping equipment (pencil and paper, or one of several smartphone/tablet apps that do all the math for you) and a standard 52-card deck of cards. Use Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards for the full effect of the Q♠’s wrath—her role in Hearts is why her artwork on the Denexa deck depicts her with a uniquely…unpleasant expression.
Shuffle and deal out the entire deck. Each player should end up with thirteen cards.
Game play
At the beginning of the first hand, each player selects three cards and pass them to the left; they will receive three replacement cards from the right. On the second hand, cards will be passed to the right; on the third, straight across. No passing occurs on the fourth hand. The fifth hand restarts the cycle, passing to the left, and so on.
After passing has occurred, the player holding the 2♣ leads it. The next player to their left responds by playing a club, if they are able; otherwise, they may play any card except for a heart or the Q♠. The other two players follow in turn. These four cards played to the table are called a trick. After all players have played a card, the player who played the highest club collects the trick and places it into a score pile separate from their hand. The 2 is the lowest card of any suit, and the ace is the highest card.
The player that won the first trick then leads any card, except for a heart; again, all players must follow the suit led, if able. There is now no restriction on what may be played if the player cannot follow suit. After all four cards have been played, the player who played the highest card of the suit led collects the cards and gets to start the next trick, and the process repeats.
When a player who is unable to follow suit plays a heart, hearts are said to have been broken. Hearts can then be led to subsequent tricks.
Scoring
After the thirteenth trick, all players will have exhausted their hand. Each player looks through their score pile and adds up their score, as follows:
- The thirteen hearts: one point each.
- The Q♠: thirteen points.
In the uncommon event that one player has managed to score all thirteen hearts and the Q♠—an act known as shooting the moon—rather than scoring 26 points, they score zero for the hand, and all three of their opponents score 26!
The deal passes to the left, the cards are shuffled, and a new hand is dealt. Game play continues until one player exceeds 100 points; the player with the lowest score at that point is the winner.
Variations
The Jack of Diamonds variant of Hearts, also known as Omnibus Hearts, adds a fifteenth point card to the game, the J♦. Unlike the other scoring cards, however, the J♦ is not a penalty; it is a bonus, worth −10 points. Like all other scoring cards, however, it cannot be played on the first trick of a hand, and it must be collected in order to successfully shoot the moon.
Some groups allow a player to opt to score −26, rather than forcing their opponents to score 26, when shooting the moon. This avoids some unfortunate scenarios where a player shoots the moon, forcing an opponent over 100 and ending the game, but causing the shooter to lose to a player that still has a lower score after the 26 points are accounted for.
See also
