Social card games Ken Hutton © 2021 Ken Hutton. https://kenhutton.uk ISBN 978-1-9168759-1-3 Other available formats: • eBook: ISBN 978-1-9168759-0-6 Fonts are from the TeX Gyre colection – Bonum for the title on the cover and title page, Heros for other headings and Pagella (with Heros’ quote marks) for the main text. The main software used to create this book was: • GraphicsMagick and the GNU image manipulation program (GIMP) – for cover design and processing illustrations and score sheets. • The Vim text editor – to write and edit the content, markup and filter programs. • GNU Awk – to process the ebook’s xhtml and to convert it to ConTeXt. • epubcheck and Info-zip’s zip – to test and put together the ebook. • ConTeXt and pdfTeX – to generate the pdf for print. • git – to keep a record of edits and – if necessary – revert changes. • Guix system, Linux, GNU Make, Bourne-Again SHell (bash) and Coreutils – to stick all the other software together and make it work. All of that is Free Software, so thank you to everyone who has contributed to those projects and to the Free Software community at large. Contents Preface . 8 Introduction . 10 Shuffling the pack . 13 Packtopack ....................................... 13 The overhand shuffle . 14 The Indian shuffle . 15 Playing in turn . 16 Snap (2–10 players) .................................... 16 Packs, packets and piles . 17 Tricks ............................................ 18 French deck . 18 Capture games . 19 General rules for capture games . 20 Snapping . 20 Battle . 21 Slapjack (2–10 players) ................................. 22 Beggar thy neighbour (2–10 players) .................... 22 Snip snap snorem (2–10 players) ......................... 23 Ranks and suits . 24 Red cards and black cards . 24 High cockalorum (2–10 players) ........................ 25 Hands, pitches, rounds and matches . 26 Spoons (2–13 players) .................................. 27 Dealing the cards . 28 Elder and Younger Hands . 29 Fishing games . 29 Bundles (2–4 players) .................................. 30 Squiffy dancer (2–12 players) ........................... 31 Order of suits . 33 Cuckoo (2–12 players, or more) ........................... 34 Cheat (2–6 players) .................................... 36 Drawing from the stock . 38 Melding runs and sets . 38 Pairs, prials and mournivals . 39 The rummy family . 39 Conquian (2 players) .................................. 40 Go fish (3–6 players) ................................... 43 Happy families (3–6 players) .......................... 45 Open, blind and hole cards . 45 Boneface (1–5 players, or more) ........................... 46 Trick taking games . 48 Trumps ............................................. 50 Deciders and rubbers . 51 Seven card whist (2–7 players) .......................... 51 Brag melds . 53 Stop the bus (2–8 players) ............................... 54 Knockout whist (3–7 players) ........................... 55 Keeping score . 57 A basic score sheet . 57 Rounds and match points . 58 Honours and penalties . 60 Special cards . 61 Shoot the moon (3–10 players, or more) .................... 61 Never-ending space race (a league for even more players) . 63 Fixed partnerships . 63 Partnership whist (4 players in fixed partnerships) . 64 Basic rummy (2–6 players, 3–4 best) ........................ 65 Some alternative rules . 67 Block rummy (2–6 players) ............................ 68 Seven rummy (2–5 players, 3 best) ......................... 68 Zero sum game . 71 Counters . 71 Account sheet . 72 Gambling . 73 Laugh and lie down (3–6 players) ....................... 74 A five player pitch . 75 Pitches with 3, 4 or 6 players. 77 Cribbage board . 78 Pegging scores . 79 Tally sheet . 80 Cribbage (2–4 players) ................................. 81 Fixed partnerships (4 players) .......................... 86 Fishing for Tens (2–4 players) .......................... 86 Trick brag (3 players) ................................. 90 Contracts . 91 Oh hell (3–7 players) .................................. 91 Scratch scoring . 93 Oy vey scoring . 93 Blind don (2 players) .................................. 94 Traditional scoring . 96 Leagues . 97 Sum-run-set (2–5 players) ............................. 101 Fixed partnerships (4 players) . 104 League play (4–5 players) ............................ 104 Gin rummy (2 players) ................................ 104 League play (3–7 players, or more) . 107 Widow ............................................ 108 Quinto (4 players in fixed partnerships) . 108 Original scoring . 111 League play (4–5 players in varying partnerships) . 111 Duo’s compendium (2 players) . 111 League play (3–7 players) ............................ 114 Two pair’s compendium (4 players in fixed partnerships) . 115 Disloyalty compendium (4–5 players in varying partnerships) 115 Shedding games . 115 Pinhead (2–12 players) ................................ 116 Burden compendium (3–5 players) . 121 Rhapsody (2–12 players, or more) . 122 Never-ending rhapsody (2–12 seats, players come and go) . 124 Poker melds . 126 Wild cards . 127 Liar poker (2–8 players, or more) . 127 Compendium in the woods (2–8 players) . 131 Own trumps (2–4, 4 best) .............................. 132 Panjpar (2 players) ................................... 134 Liverpool rummy (3–5 players) . 137 Temporary alliances . 140 Plantagenet (5 players with temporary alliances) . 141 Auctions . 147 Bigwig (3 players with temporary alliances) . 147 Solo whist (4 players with temporary alliances) . 152 Big two (4 players) ................................... 154 Trump ranks . 157 Player rank . 157 Hundred (4 players in fixed partnerships) . 158 Tractors and set flushes . 162 Big three (3–4 players, 3 best) . 163 Looking for friends (5–12 players with temporary alliances) . 166 Index . 174 PREFACE Preface This book began as a recovery project after a chest infection and I’m a little surprised to find it finished and very nearly ready to publish – even if it has taken a little over two years. It may never have gotten this far if the world hadn’t become sick just as I was recovering. It’s April 2021 now and in England the Covid restrictions are easing but the pandemic is still very much a fact of everyday life. We can visit friends and family a little more but I have a while to wait before I can get close enough to my friends to play card games again. Two of my nephews will be over on Thursday though, maybe I’ll see if they want to play snip snap snorem. Publishing a book today is a scary prospect – am I really going to make two years wages out of this? There are so many options and so many people ready to assure you that the money you spend on their services will be worth it. The reality seems to be that things are changing so much right now that even experienced professionals can’t be sure they are giving the right advice. So I feel like I’m betting two years wages on the roll of a dice – and I don’t like to gamble. The process so far has been about 50% pleasure and 50% pain. Pleasure from the creativity, the problem solving and the reminiscences brought about by thinking about the people I have played these games with. Pain from fear of failure and the laborious restructuring that comes from one of two causes. I made some poor decisions early on like working on the print version first and not considering the ebook from the start – it turns out it’s much easier to convert html to TeX than to go the other way. I also had some bright ideas later on, like abandoning my attempt to categorise the games and arrange them in chapters. It took about a fortnight to figure out what PREFACE order to put the games in so that new ideas are instead presented between the games, one or two at a time. Who knew the graph theory I learned with the Open University would come in handy here?.