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So you're sitting around with your friends and a deck of cards, looking for agame to play. You're sick of such retreads as hearts and spades, and you'renot the gambling type. You consult among yourselves only to find that each ofyou knows only a couple of card games, and there isn't a single card game thatyou all know. Well, we have the answer! In this compact book we present theten best card games you've never heard of, for you and your friends to learntogether and laugh together. While these games are long, they are by no meansgrueling; rather, they are fun games with an emphasis on quick thinking andintuitive evaluation. Most importantly, all of the games here have one or moreunique features; this is not a book containing a hundred variants of poker,but rather a book with ten very different novel games, each of which has thepotential to provide you with countless hours of fun.

If you just want a game to play and don't want to read through all of this... well, games in generalfall into three types. There are the fun games, which are fun to play and a good time, not requiringmuch strategy or deep thought. There are the games for inveterate card-players, that involve lots ofcounting and knowing how suits typically split and which have significant cardplay components; callthese 'veteran games.' Then there are the games which are simply unorthodox, that aren't frivolousgames but which don't have a big advantage to veteran cardplayers; call these 'abstract games.' Thelast two categories are, of course, fun, but in a way that is perhaps more appealing to people who likeplaying cards than to the general population.

Of the games in this book, Creights and Spielen are definitely fun games. Barbu, 99, and Oh Hell aredefinitely veteran games. Psychological Jujitsu and Canadian Fish are definitely abstract games. Of theremaining three, Ninety-nine is somewhere between a fun game and an abstract game, Napoleon issomewhere between a fun game and a veteran game, and Liars' Poker is a mix of all three. So if you'rejust looking for one game, that's the all-purpose preview.

Jump to:

• -1. What is a Deck of Cards?
• 0. The Basic Idea of a Trick-Taking Game
• 1. Creights
• 2. Barbu
• 3. Ninety-nine
• 4. 99
• 5. Oh Hell (also known as Scotch Bridge)
• 6. Napoleon
• 7. Liars' Poker
• 8. Psychological Jujitsu
• 9. Canadian Fish
• 10. Spielen

-1. What is a Deck of Cards?
Whenever we refer to a deck of cards in this book, we mean a standard 52-card deck. Thiscontains four suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades) and thirteen ranks (2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7, 8, 9, 10, jack (often denoted 'J'), queen ('Q'), king ('K'), and ace ('A')). The 52-card deckcontains one card for each suit-rank combination. Jacks, queens, and kings are referred to as 'facecards', as the cards usually contain pictures of people, while the number cards (2 through 10) areoccasionally referred to as 'spot cards.' The order of the ranks is usually as stated, althoughsometimes the ace is low instead of high (or worth 1, when spot cards are worth their number and jacks,queens, and kings are either all worth 10 or worth 11, 12, and 13 respectively.) In some games, thereis an ordering of the suits, although in most games all suits are created equal.0. The Basic Idea of a Trick-Taking Game
If you are familiar with trick-taking games such as hearts, spades, orbridge, you do not need to read this section.
One of the more common types of card games is trick-taking games.The basic concept of a trick is as follows: one player leads a card,and then each player in turn (usually clockwise) must play a card of the suitled. If they do not have any cards of the suit led, they may play any card.Some trick-taking games have what is known as a trump suit; this suitis higher than all the others, and if there are any cards of this suit in atrick, the person who played the highest card of this suit wins the trick.Playing a trump to a trick that is not of the trump suit (which necessitates being void of the suit led) is known as ruffing or trumping;trumping a trick that has already been trumped with a higher trump is called overruffing or overtrumping. Playing a lower trump in a trickthat has already been trumped is rare, and is known as underruffingor undertrumping. Ifthere is no trump suit, or no trump is played in the trick, then the highestcard of the suit led wins the trick. The effect of winning the trick istwofold; first of all, you collect the cards of the trick, and second of all,you lead the first card of the next trick.

Trick-taking games have various goals, but the basic idea is that at the endof the hand, points are awarded based on the cards that people have collectedin the tricks they have won. The two main subtypes types of trick-taking games arethose where the results are based on who has taken certain cards in theirtricks (as in hearts) and those where the results are based on how many tricksplayers have taken (as in spades or bridge.) A complete description of anytrick-taking game should also contain instructions on who makes the firstlead; this can be determined by actions prior to the beginning of the play (asin bridge), who has a given card (as in hearts), or may simply bethe dealer or player to the left of the dealer.

1. Creights
Creights is a speed-based variant of Crazy Eights. Perhaps 'variant' isnot strong enough of a word; consider the classic game of Crazy Eights, andascribe an additional rule for virtually every card, and you end up withcreights, a game which is guaranteed to liven up every party. The one drawbackof the game is that people occasionally start thinking, and creights is reallyno fun as a strategy game.
Players: 3 to 5, 5 to 8 with double-deck rules.
Playing time: Depends almost entirely on the speed of the players.1-3 hours for the long version, half that for the abbreviated game with fourplayers.
The Deal: Creights consists of fifteen deals. On the first hand,each player receives eight cards; on the second hand, seven, and so forth. Onthe eighth hand each player receives only a single card, and the number ofcards goes back up to eight, increasing by one on each ensuing deal. In theshort version of creights, only the first eight hands are played. Deal rotatesto the left. If the dealer deals too many cards, he or she must keep all extracards; if the dealer deals too few, he or she receives a dumbass card (seelater.)
The Play: At the beginning of the game, the dealer turns up thetop card of the deck, and all remaining cards are placed face down in a drawpile. The player to the left ofthe dealer ordinarily starts, with play proceeding clockwise. In general, onhis or her turn, a player must make a legal play if possible on top of theplay pile; if not, he or she must draw a card. Legal plays are usually cardsof the same rank or suit as the top card of the play pile; see below forexceptions. The deal typically ends when one player gets rid of all theircards.

The main feature of creights is that nearly every card does something to thegame when played, as follows.

• Jacks, queens, and kings do nothing.
• Tens reverse the order of play. Thus, if play is proceedingclockwise, and a ten is played, play then proceeds counterclockwise. Inparticular, it is now the turn of the person who had last taken a turn.
• Nines are limited wilds. You may play any nine on any card; whendoing so, you must name a suit. This suit must be of the same color as theprevious suit, not the color of the nine or even necessarily the cardbefore it (if, for instance, the previous card was a nine.) The next playermust then play a card of that suit (or another wild.)
• Eights, as in Crazy Eights, are wild. You may play any eight on anycard; when doing so, you must name a suit. This can be any suit and as abovebecomes the new suit in play.
• Sevens force the player across from you to draw a card. If thereare an odd number of people, the player nearly-across from you closer in thedirection of play must draw a card; for example, in a five-player game, theplayer two after you in the current direction of play must draw a card. The exception is that if thereare only three people, then the player two down from you in the direction of play is the one who getsthe card.
• Sixes force you to play again. If you play a six, you must playagain; if you have no ensuing legal play, you must draw a card.
• Fives give a card to everyone else, in the order of the directionof play (it will become clear in a minute why the order of drawing isimportant.) Thus, if play is going clockwise, and you play a five, the playeron your left must draw a card, followed by the player on their left, and so onuntil the player on your right.
• Fours skip the next player's turn.
• Threes do nothing during the play.
• Twos start a crank. During a crank, all rules of play aresuspended. Instead, on each player's turn, that player must play a two or anace of any suit if they have one. If not, the crank ends, and that player mustdraw a number of cards equal to the total value of the cards in the crank(i.e. two for each 2, and one for each ace.) This counts as their turn, andturn passes to the player after them in the play order, with the normal rulesof play back in effect.
• Aces do nothing except during a crank, as above.

So, as you can see, creights is not your garden-variety backyard game ofringtoss. It will probably take you a few deals to get comfortable with therules; until then, we recommend you keep the rules for what the cards do on apiece of paper nearby.

In addition to the play itself, there are a few other rules in creights.Firstof all, whatever card the dealer turns up counts as if the dealer had playedit (with play going clockwise.) Thus, for instance, if a six is played,the dealer starts play; if a ten is played, the player to the right of thedealer starts with play going counterclockwise; if a five is played, eachother player must draw an additional card starting with left-of-dealer; if atwo is played, the deal begins in a crank with value two, and so forth. If aneight or nine is played, dealer must call a suit before looking at hisor her hand. In the case of a nine, dealer may call any suit.

Now, with all these rules, you might wonder what the penalty for erring is.The answer is appropriately named dumbass cards. When a player doessomething stupid, he or she is eligible to receive a dumbass card (given byany other player.) Such events include but are not limited to: calling aninappropriate suit when playing a nine, making an illegal play (such as thejack of spades when the suit is not spades and the card showing is not a jack;you'd be surprised at how often this can happen), being completely unawarethat it is your turn, playing out of turn, not calling the suit beforelooking at your hand on a wild as dealer, and just generally doing anythingstupid. As you gain experience, you probably also want to institute thefive-second rule, giving a dumbass card for taking too long. We recommend thaton a player's first game of creights, he or she not be given dumbass cards, orat least for the first few deals. You do not get dumbass cards for drawingwhen it is not your turn; instead, you get to keep these bonus cards. This canin fact (if you're clever enough) be a way to trick others into thinking it'stheir turn, giving them a dumbass card (a useful ploy if someone is about togo out.)

Another miscellaneous rule is the one-card rule. If at any point duringyour turn other than the beginning you will have exactly one card in yourhand, you must say 'one card' (or 'last card') before making any motion toplay cards out of your hand. Failure to do so will result in a very harshpenalty; at your next non-crank turn, you are skipped and must instead drawtwo cards from the top of the deck. Situations in which this applies includethe following.

• You have two cards, and are planning to play one of them.
• You have two cards, and one of them is a six. You are planning to play thesix and then your other card, going out.
• You have two cards, and one of them is a six. You are planning to play thesix, but cannot play your other card, forcing you to draw.
• You have one card, and it is a six. You are planning to play it, but willbe left with no legal plays, not having any cards. You must then draw.

The one-card rule applies as usual during a crank. The final situation bringsup another rule of creights; when a person plays his or her last card, all ofthe effects of that card are carried through before the game ends. If, as inthe situation with the six, this results in the person no longer having nocards, the game continues. Other situations in which this can happen is if theperson plays the nine and calls an inappropriate suit (receiving a dumbasscard), or if a person goes out during a crank and the crank comes backaround to them, at which point (having no crank cards left) they are back inthe game with a lot of cards. Similarly, if a person plays a five, the otherplayers each draw a card before the hand is scored, and if a person plays aseven to go out, the person across from them gets a card. If in addition thelast card played is the seven of diamonds, that person not only receives anextra card, but owes a beer to the person going out. This is a very importantrule, and should not be dismissed.The last, and possibly most important, part of creights, is shufflepressures. If at any time you have to draw a card and there are no cardsleft in the draw pile, you receive a shuffle pressure. This has threeconsequences:

1. You must shuffle the deck. Take the top card, leave it face up, andshuffle the rest of the play pile, placing it face down as the new draw pile.
2. Everyone laughs at you.
3. For your first shuffle pressure, you get five points. Each additionalshuffle pressure is worth twice as much as the previous one, so the second isworth 10, the third 20, and so on. Shuffle pressures are cumulative acrossrounds. If you get two shuffle pressures in the first round of eight, andthen another in the round of seven, this one shuffle pressure is worth 20points, not 5. Shuffle pressures in a round are denoted by a dot (one foreach shuffle pressure) next to the player's score for that round.

If you need to draw, but there are no cards in the draw pile, and in additionthere is only one card in the play pile, you get a shuffle pressure and theround ends immediately. Note that for this to happen 51 of the 52 cards mustbe in someone's hand.

And that's it for creights. This may seem like a lot of rules, but they can beinternalized fairly quickly.
Scoring: As previously mentioned, the round ends when one playerisbereft of cards. Each player then receives points for each card they have intheir hand (the player going out receives 0); the object is to accumulate thefewest total points in the fifteen hands. In general, the better a card isduring the play, the worse it is to have in your hand at the end of the game.The scoring is as follows:

• 8's are worth 50 points each.
• 5's, 6's, and 9's are worth 30 points each.
• 10's are worth 25 points.
• 2's and 7's are worth 20 points each.
• 4's are worth 15 points.
• J's, Q's, and K's are worth 10 points.
• 3's are worth 3 points. However, 3's are very useful. If you havea3 and another card, you can use it to cover the other card; you then get 3points for the 3, but no points for the other card; for instance, if you have a 3, a 5, and a 10, you can use the 3 to cover the 5, getting three points for the 3, none for the 5, and 25 for the 10 for a total of 28, instead of 58. 3's cannot cover 8's, and can only cover 3's if they have nothing else to cover (thus, for instance, 33A6 is worth six, since one three covers the six and the other three must cover the ace, while 33A is worth three since one three covers the ace, and the other three covers the first three.)If you are so lucky as to end a hand with only 3's left, you instead get -50 points for each 3; this is the only way to get negative points. If you are so lucky as to have all four 3's, you are promptly thrown out the nearest window. (For a long time, there was a parenthetical comment here saying that this has never happened. Then it happened.)
• A's are worth 1 point.

Strategy: Creights is not inherently a game of strategy, and whatlittle strategy there is you will figure out very quickly. In general, 3's andaces are good cards to keep in one's hand (by not playing them if at allavoidable); 3's because they can drastically reduce your score, and acesbecause they protect you during a crank and are low-point cards. One of thebeautiful things about creights is that the game is balanced, as mentionedbefore, so that the better a card is to play, the worse it is for you duringscoring. In particular, keeping 8's and 9's will ensure that you are alwaysable to play, but keeping too many on hand is a recipefor disaster if someone goes out. One of the most important elements of creights is the beer rule;this happens just enough (about once per 15-hand game) that it doesn't have a huge effect, but isn'tentirely frivolous.For that reason, playing the seven of diamonds not asyour last card 'ought' to be avoided.1a. Double-deck rules
If you're going to play hearts with more than five people, you ought touse two decks (for exactly five people, the more adventurous can try playingwith just one deck, but two is standard.) It is possible to play with identical rules, but some people play with the following modifications.

First, one set of fives isremoved from the deck to eliminate excess blood (however, both sets of crankcards are left in, so cranks can now go up to 24 cards.) The other twomodifications concern playing identical copies of the same card. If it is yourturn, you may play two copies of the same card (provided, of course, that thecard is legally playable.) The first copy acts naturally; the second copy, onthe other hand, counts as if the next person to play had played it; thus, ifit is a seven, the player across from them gets a card, if it is a five,everyone other than them gets a card, and so forth. Their turn is thenskipped. Note that if you play a pair of identical tens, the first ten playedreverses order, sending it to the player who just played; the second tenreverses order again, though, making it your turn again.

The second case of this occurs when you play a card identical to the card justplayed. It then remains your turn, and your play (which may be drawing if youhave no legal plays) takes the place of the next person's turn. This may becombined with the previous rule, so that you may actually end up taking theturns of the two players after you.

These rules do not apply to sixes; sixes in double-deck creights functionjust as in single-deck creights.

2. Barbu
Barbu is a very involved strategy game. Hailing from an Old French cardgame of the same name, its main distinguishing feature is that it is composedof eight simple but different card games; the complexity in the game liesnot only in the play of the cards, but in judging how good one's hand is foreach game. As such, Barbu has an element of strategy absent from most othergames, while at the same time remaining simple in structure. It isintellectually engaging, but nowhere near as taxing as other such games, likebridge.
Players: 4.
Playing time: 2-3 hours.
The Deal: Barbu consists of thirty-two deals. Deal rotates to theleft. On each deal, the dealer, after examining his or her cards, chooseswhich of the eight subgames will be played. Each dealer must choose each ofthe eight games exactly once in his or her eight deals.
Doubling: After the dealer deals out thirteen cards to each player,there is a round of doubling. Each player in turn, starting with the player ondealer's left and proceeding clockwise, can choose to double any subset of theother three players (or pass, doubling no one.) If you are doubled by anotherplayer, you may choose toredouble them. Dealer may not double anyone, but may redouble anyone whodoubles him. After the round of doubling, there is a round of redoubling, inwhich players may choose to redouble players who have redoubled them (but nonew doubling can take place.) Doubling (and redoubling) is symmetric; if Idouble you, it is the same as if you double me. The effect of doubling is asfollows: if you and I are doubled, then the difference between my score andyours in that hand is added to my score and subtracted from yours. So, forexample, if we are doubled and I score -2 in the round, and you score -10,then I get in addition to my -2 eight points, and you lose eight points; ifneither of us is doubled with anyone else, I would thus get +6 and you wouldget -18. If we are redoubled, double the difference is added to my score andsubtracted from yours. Note that doubling does not change the total pointsawarded in the hand.Now, you might ask why you would want to double the dealer; having chosen thehand, dealer in all likelihood has a better hand for it than you do. Well,first of all, in a few games only one player gets negative points, and if youare sure it won't be you, you may as well double the dealer. The other, moreimportant reason, is that during the game, each player must doubleevery other player twice out of the eight hands that they deal. It isdesirable to get these 'dealer doubles' out of the way quickly, as otherwiseyou will be forced to double the dealer on his last two deals.
The Play: Barbu is composed of eight subgames. After thedeal, the dealer chooses the game, and the doubling and redoubling, if any,takes place. Dealer then makes the first play, and play continuescounterclockwise. All but one of the eight games are trick-taking games, withscoring as explained below. Note that in many of the games, only a few cardsmatter; the hand can be thrown in as soon as these cards have been collected.

Barbu: This is the namesake subgame of the overall game, and isquite simple. It is a trick-taking game where the player who takes the king ofhearts gets -15, and all other players get 0. In this game, no player can ever lead hearts unless theyhave only hearts left.
Hearts: This game is quite similar to thetraditional game ofhearts. It is a trick-taking game, where each heart taken is worth -2, and theace of hearts is worth -6. Unlike the game of hearts, there is no queen ofspades or shooting the moon. No heart can be led until a hearthas been played or the player on lead has only hearts left.
Queens: In this trick-taking game, all queens are worth -6 pointsto whoever takes them. The other 48 cards are worth nothing.
Nullo: The object of this trick-taking game is simply not to taketricks; each trick is worth -2 to its winner.
Last Two: In this trick-taking game, the first 11 tricks are worthnothing. The twelfth trick, however, is worth -10 to its winner, and thethirteenth trick is worth -20. While this may seem simple, Last Two isprobably the most complicated of the eight subgames.
Ravage: Also called Ravage City, this is the most unique of theeight subgames. In this trick-taking game, the player that takes the mostcards of any one suit gets -36, and all other players get 0. For example, if Ihave nine diamonds, and no one else has nine or more of any suit (in thetricks we've taken), I lose ('get ravaged'), and take the -36. If two or moreplayers tie, they split the -36 evenly, regardless of how many suits each has been ravaged in.
Trumps: In this trick-taking game, there is a trump suit, whichdealer names when he chooses the game, before the doubling round. The objecthere is simply to take take tricks; each trick is worth +5. Unlike in someother games, if you can trump you must. If you are playing to a trick that hasalready been trumped, and you can overtrump, you must, but you are notrequired to undertrump.
Dominoes: Dominoes is the only non-trick-taking gameof the eightsubgames. In dominoes, when dealer calls the game, he also calls a 'pivotcard,' which is a rank (so, for instance, 'Dominoes around the nine.') On eachturn (starting with dealer and moving clockwise), a player may either play anypivot card (card of the specified rank), or a card which is of the same suitand either one higher or one lower than a card already played. Aces are alwayshigh and can be played only on kings of the same suit (unless they are thepivot card); similarly, deuces canbe played only on threes. All cards played are in open view, in four rows(corresponding to the suits) face up on the table. If you cannot play a cardon your turn, you must pass. The object of the game is to get rid of all ofone's cards first. The first player to go out gets +30 points; the secondplayer, +20, the third player, +10, and the fourth player, 0.

Scoring: Scoring for each of the subgames is as above. After scoresfor each subgame are determined, the effects of doubling are imposed(simultaneously.) In general, points from doubling outweigh points from thegames (which tend to even out over the course of 32 deals), and thus a lot ofthe strategy lies in knowing when to double. These scores are then added to arunning total. As there are a lot of things to keep track of in a game ofBarbu, we suggest the following method of keeping score: first, have onecolumn for each player. Mark off eight lines corresponding to the eightsubgames, and cross out the appropriate box when the dealer calls the game;this keeps track of which dealers have called (and therefore cannot callagain) which games. In each column, also put two copies of the names of theother three players; these stand for dealer doubles, and are crossed outwhenever a dealer double is made. Below, simply add the score of each subgameto a running total after the subgame is completed. After calculating eachscore (modified for doubling), you may want to check to make sure you have itright, as it is very frustrating to complete a game of Barbu only to discovera scorekeeping error which may be unrecoverable. A handy way to do this is tosum the players' scores; this is unaffected by doubling, and thus is onlydependent on what games have been played. The total score for each game shouldbe as follows:

• Barbu: -15
• Hearts: -30
• Queens: -24
• Nullo: -26
• Last Two: -30
• Ravage: -36
• Trumps: +65
• Dominoes: +60

When you are done with a game of Barbu, each game has been played four times,so the players' scores should sum to -144.
Strategy: The strategy in Barbu lies almost entirely in handevaluation. If you know which hands are good for which games, you will begreatly aided in the processes of game choosing and doubling. Fortunately, asall of the games are fairly simple, it is in general not too difficult to determine whichgame is best for your hand as dealer. However, there are a couple of pitfalls.

First, it is worth noting that only one of the eight games favors having highcards; in six of the games, one wants to avoid winning tricks. The eighth isdominoes, and because of this imbalance one generally calls dominoes with ahigh hand. While it may seem that trumps is more an escape route for agenerally high hand, in these situations it is often better to play alow-risk game such as Barbu; with judicious use of trumps, dealer ought to winseven or eight tricks. An ideal hand for Last Two can also contain many highcards; as long as they're complemented by twos or threes to relinquish thelead, having aces and kings allows you to get control of the hand and play outyour problem suits to ensure they are not led in the twelfth or thirteenthtrick. Similarly, you can get away with high cards in Hearts; the ideal heartshand is one with lots of hearts, including some low ones so that you take noheart tricks. Often, you will find that no game is particularly good for yourhand; in this case, put on a poker face and call something that is unlikely tohurt you, such as Barbu, Nullo, or Queens. Getting -6 as dealer playing Queensis not nearly as bad as getting -36 as dealer playing Ravage - or probablymore, since it is likely that if you have a mediocre hand, one or more of theother players will have a good hand and double you.

The second part of Barbu strategy lies in the doubling. In general, doublingthe dealer is best done in games where only one player loses (Barbu, Ravage,typically Last Two) and you are sure it won't be you. But beware on Ravage;you should have in each suit either two low cards (7 or below) or only onehigh card (9 or above) and one low card. It often happens that each player isconfident about his or her hand for Ravage, with the end result that allplayers end up redoubled with each other. In this case, the player that getsravaged gets -252, with each other player getting +72. This 324-point swing isthe largest possible in any subgame, and the player getting -252 is virtuallyeliminated from contention. This is also the case in Last Two, with the losergetting -210. So, if you are doubling in Ravage or Last Two, you should beas close to sure that you will not lose as possible. If there is even a hintof a doubt, do not redouble.

Other good games on which to double the dealer are Nullo and Queens. Becausethese games do not provide large swings, if you think you will take at mostthree tricks in Nullo or at most one queen, it is probably worthwhile to use adealer double (and double all of the other players as well.) Never double thedealer on Trumps; even if you have a very good hand, the dealer probably has abetter one. Be careful about doubling the dealer on Dominoes; in alllikelihood he or she will control the hand, and your one two may come back tohaunt you.

The game is largely determined by the doubling. Do not be afraid to double oninstinct. Better than instinct, however, is table knowledge; if a playerpasses, he or she likely has a bad hand, and even if you have a hand that isbelow average you should consider doubling them. Likewise, if a player doublesyou, figure that player for an above-average hand and redouble only if youhave a very good hand. Towards the end of the game, if you are losing by a lotyou may need to double to get back in the game. Conversely, if you arewinning, you don't want to be forced to double the other players when they'redealing, so it is a good idea to get those dealer doubles out of the way asquickly as possible. You should not confine your dealer doubling to handswhere you have a great hand for what the dealer has called; if you get nopoints in the hand, the dealer double cannot hurt you. Otherwise, in theeighth round, you must be forced to double the dealer with a horrible Ravagehand; if the dealer redoubles, you will go down at least -108, even withoutthe other players also doubling. This is quite undesirable.

3. Ninety-nine
Ninety-nine starts out as a very simple game, but grows in complexity witheach deal that is played. The beauty of this game is that the players controlhow the game will change, making it a game of creativity rather than analyticthinking, something very rare among card games. The game is not to be confusedwith 99, also in this book; we have made the distinction between the twohere by representing one by letters and one by numbers, but in practice bothgames have the same name.
Players: 2 and up. Probably best with 3-5.
Playing time: Ninety-nine is a game of indefinite length; it lastsas long as the players want it to. It becomes rather untenable after about10-15 hands, which should take about an hour.
The Deal: At the beginning of each hand, each player receives threecards. The actual identity of the dealer is irrelevant; the player that wonthe last hand goes first (and typically deals also.) For the first hand, youcan use your favorite metric (oldest, youngest, longest beard, person whosebirthday is coming up soonest, etc.) to determine who goes first.
The Play: As stated before, ninety-nine starts out as an incrediblysimple game. Play starts with the player that won the last hand, andcontinues clockwise. On your turn, you play a card face up and draw a card.The cardplayed adds to a running total, which starts at 0; you announce the total asyou play the card. Aces through tens add their numeric value. Jacks and queensadd 10 each. Black kings can add either +10 or -10, as determined by theplayer who plays them; red kings are -10. The only restriction on playing acard is that you cannot play a card that makes the total greater than 99; ifyou have no legal plays, you are out of the hand. The last player remaining inthe hand wins. Note that you draw a card immediately after playing one; if youforget to draw this card before the next player plays, you do not get areplacement card and are left with one fewer than you started. As more cardsgives you more flexibility, it is desirable to preserve your original quota ofthree, so do not forget to draw.
After the Hand: The defining part of ninety-nine comes after thehand.After each hand, the winner of the hand invents a new rule which then becomesa rule all subsequent hands. This rule can be anything at all; the onlyconstraint is that the rule must be symmetric to all players (e.g. the rulecannot be of the form 'All players whose names start with M start with fourcards instead of three.') Also, the rule should not give a sizable advantageto the player who plays first, lest the game degenerate into a trivial win forthe player who won the last game. Some common types of rules are those that dosomething to the order of play (e.g. 'Playing a seven reverses the directionof play'), things that do something to the total (e.g. 'Playing a two can, atthe player's discretion, add 12 to the total instead of two'), things that dosomething to the number of cards (e.g. 'If you play a nine, you don't get todraw a replacement card'), and constraints on the total (e.g. 'The total cannever be a multiple of ten.') But these are just examples; the scope ofpossible rules is limited only by your imagination. If at any time a play ismade which violates a rule (initially, only plays that put the total above 99,but the number of illegal plays often increases with the number of rules), theillegal play is discarded, the player does not get a replacement card, and itis still that player's turn. (This typically happens when a player forgetssome rule or another.) If a player has no cards, he or she afortiori has no legal plays, and is out of the hand.
Scoring: Ninety-nine does not have actual scoring, just as it hasno predetermined ending point (a logical point to stop the game is when therules become sufficiently complicated that players have forgotten most ofthem.) If you're a very competitive person, you probably shouldn't be playingthis game, but if you must, you can score by giving each player one point foreach hand won.
Strategy: There is no scoring in ninety-nine, and thus there reallyis no strategy also. Try to avoid playing kings, as having the ability todecrease the total as it approaches 99 is invaluable; keeping low cards isalso good for this. Always remember to draw a card immediately after you playone, as you will feel quite silly (and in all likelihood lose the hand) ifyour opponents have a stash of two cards on hand, while you are forced to playthe card that you get. It goes without saying that remembering the rules istremendously helpful.4. 99
99 is a delicious medium between a card-counting game where all 52 cardsare in play, such as bridge, and a game of imperfect information where thereis a lot concealed, such as poker. In this trick-taking game, each playerstrives for anindividual goal unknown to the other players, with asymmetry between suitsproviding complex nuances of strategy. This game is not to be confused withninety-nine, also in this book; we have made the distinction between the twohere by representing one by letters and one by numbers, but in practice bothgames have the same name.
Players: 4. Can be adapted to five, butloses much of its charm; if this is done, remove the twos of diamonds andclubs from the deck beforehand.
Playing time: 45-90 minutes. Like most card games, the playing timeof 99 is largely dependent on the speed of the players.
The deal: Deal starts with an arbitrary player, and rotates to theleft. All 52 cards are dealt out, witheach player receiving thirteen cards.
Bidding: Each player sets aside three cards, which represent thenumber of tricks the player proposes to take in the play of the hand. Thesethree cards per player are out of the game, and are not revealed until the endof the hand. The bidding is done simultaneously and independently, with thisround being over when each player has decided on his or her bid. The cardsencode the bid as follows: a diamond is worth 0 tricks, a spade 1, a heart 2,and a club 3, with the bid being the total of the suits of the three cards. Note that there are 10 tricks in total (as each player plays with a ten-cardhand); three diamonds can representeither 0 or 10 tricks bid. A handy mnemonic for this is that spades have one'point,' hearts two, clubs three, and diamonds ... are mostly round.
The Play: Each hand has a trump suit, which is diamonds for thefirst hand, then spades, hearts, and clubs. The fifth hand is no-trump, andthen it wraps around back to diamonds. (This order corresponds to the order ofthe suits in the bidding.) Player to the left of the dealer makes the openinglead, and play proceeds clockwise. During the play, each player aims to getexactly the number of tricks he or she bid before the play.
Scoring: At the end of each hand, each player gets a number ofpoints equal to the number of tricks they have taken. More importantly, eachplayer who made his or her bid exactly gets a bonus of 10 points. If a player has reached 99 or more bymaking their bid, and they have the most points, they win. In practice, this will be the first playerwho reaches or exceeds 99 points, except that a player cannot win unless they made their bid on thathand.
Strategy: 99 is a simple game, but the strategy is quite complex.Unlike most trick-taking card games, the suits will in general not splitevenly; typically, spades are the least numerous suit, followed by diamonds,hearts, and clubs. Indeed, it is quite common for a player to be void inspades at the beginning, or at the very least have a singleton; contrariwise,it is not out of the question for all 13 clubs to be in play. Make note ofthis when determining your bid, as if you have the ace-king of spades (andspades are not trump), you should definitely not count on scoring both ofthem.

Putting aside the three cards serves a dual purpose. Not only do these cardsdetermine your bid, but they also provide you with a way to modify your hand.This interplay occasionally results in a sticky situation, especially whendiamonds are trumps. In this case, often a player will want to bid low, butwill be unable to do so without discarding diamonds that make their hand evenworse. A similar situation arises when spades are trumps.

More often, however, you can make use of this by discarding cards of theappropriate rank. It is a naive strategy to always determine how many tricksyour hand can take, and discarding the lowest cards allowing you to make thatbid; frequently, you can be more sure of making your bid by discarding jacksand queens, or even aces and kings, and making a lower bid than one mightotherwise. Discarding high cards also has the effect of disrupting the otherplayers' planning; the vast majority of the points scored come from makingone's bid exactly, and if the other players end up taking more tricks thanthey bid, that's good news for you. Similarly, you want to try to voidyourself in a suit if possible (if you have two spades and want to bid 2,discarding both of them and a diamond is preferable to discarding a heart andtwo diamonds), for this will both provide a trick source and nullifyopponents' aces that they are no doubt counting on. Do not be afraid todiscard trumps if necessary; this, again, will disrupt opponents' logic.

5. Oh Hell (also known as Scotch Bridge)
Oh Hell is probably the best-known of the games mentioned in this book.However, it is still rarely played, and seems to be dying today; a shame, asit is one of the more intriguing trick-taking games in existence. Furthermore,like Barbu, it is in and of itself a diverse card game, with strategy for cardplay in each hand quite different, which makes playing a game of Oh Hell farfrom a monotonous drone.
Players: 3-5, best with four.
Playing time: About 2 hours for the long game, half that for theshort game.
The Deal: With four players, Oh Hell consists of 25 deals. Firstdealer is determined however one desires, and deal rotates to the left. On thefirst deal, each player gets one card; on the second deal, each player getstwo cards, and so on up to the thirteenth deal, where each player gets 13cards. In the remaining twelve deals (which are not played in the shortversion), the number of cards goes back down from 13 to 1. (In thethree-player version, the game lasts 33 deals, with the number of cards goingfrom 1 to 17 and back to 1; with five players, the game is 19 deals, withnumber of cards per player going from 1 to 10 and back to 1.) In all but thethirteenth deal, the top card of the remaining pile (which is otherwiseunused) is turned up, and its suit becomes the trump suit for the hand. In thethirteenth deal, there is no trump.
Bidding: Each player, starting with the player to the left of thedealer and continuing clockwise, announces the exact number of trickshe orshe proposes to take in the hand; this is noted on the scoresheet. Each playeris free to bid anywhere between 0 and the number of tricks in the hand, exceptdealer; dealer is not allowed to bid the number which will make the totalnumber of tricks proposed equal to the number of tricks in the hand. Thisrule, known as screw the dealer, is not used in some variants, but addsan element of spice to the game by ensuring that at least one player will failto make their bid.
The Play: Once the bidding is completed, the hand is played. Playerto the left of dealer leads to the opening trick, and play proceeds as atrick-taking game, with as many tricks being played as there are cards in eachplayer's hand.
Scoring: As in 99, making one's bid exactly is the goal; in fact,this is more important than in 99, as each player gets points only ifthey bid the exact number of tricks they take. There are many scoring systemsused in Oh Hell. The one which is most well-balanced is as follows: for a bidof zero, a player receives the number of tricks in the hand (which reflectsthe added difficulty of making this bid as the number of tricks in the handincreases.) For any other bid, a player receives twice the number of tricksbid, plus a three-point bonus. Of course, these points are only obtained if the player makes the bidexactly; otherwise, the player receives nothing. The game ends after all 25hands have been played, and the player with the most points wins.
Strategy: Strategy in Oh Hell is very different in the low-card(1-5),medium-card (6-9), and high-card (10-13) hands. When there are few cards inthehand, onehas very imperfect information; an added element here is that the lead becomesincredibly important. In general, having trumps (even low trumps) is veryimportant, as it is unlikely that the other players have many; furthermore, ifthey do have one or two trumps, it is quite likely that they have a void insome suit or another, and will use their trumps to take those tricks.Contrariwise, if you have high cards in other suits, the odds are high thatthey will be ruffed if the other players choose to. In theround of one, the player leading determines the suit in play; if you are notthe first person to play, and you do not have a trump, you should bid zero asit is unlikely, even if you have an ace, that the player on lead will lead acard of your suit.

In the medium-card hands, it becomes likely that a suit will go around atleast once before it is ruffed. However, it is still unclear what a high cardis; in particular, it is quite difficult to know whether or not you can counton a king for a trick. Similarly, low trumps also become hard to value, assome other player may have high trumps and choose to lead them out. Themedium-card hands are probably the most difficult to play, which explains whywe offer the least advice for them.

In the high-card hands, you should generally count on any given card being inplay. You can also bank on each suit going around twice before players canruff; consequently, it becomes safe to count kings as tricks most of the time.Trump length presents the biggest problem for bidding; if you have five smalltrumps, you don't really know how many of them will win tricks. In general, agood rule of thumb is to assume that each trump after the second will win atrick, more if you have high trumps. This is a slight undervaluing of yourhand, but if necessary it is much easier to ditch low trumps under high trumpsthan to be forced to win tricks with trumps you do not have. Obviously, thisshould be adjusted depending on the number of cards in the hand. At thispoint, you should also start paying attention to what's been played, as mostcards will be in play.

In each case, you should consider how many tricks you will win on acard-by-card basis. Remember, though, that you may end up winningtricks by virtue of other players giving them to you; you should payattention to bids before yours to see how aggressive the other players will beduring the play.

Most of the strategy during the play applies to all types of hands. A goodstrategy at the beginning of a hand is to play the cards whose value you areuncertain of. Consider the following situation: in a hand of four, you havethe ace and four of diamonds, the queen of spades, and the three of hearts,with diamonds as trump, and you have bid two. If you are on lead, you want tolead the queen of spades; if it wins, you do not want towin your four of diamonds, and so you should play the four of diamonds on thenext trick (which it will presumably lose.) If it loses, you need to win thefour of diamonds in order to make the contract, which will affect your play accordingly.

In general, there are good cardssuch as the four of diamonds in this example, for which you have a lot ofchoice over whether or not they will win a trick, and bad cards such as thequeen of spades, whose trick-taking value is uncertain. As illustrated above,you want to play your bad cards first so you know what to do with your goodcards. In the high-card hands, bad cards are holdings such as Q-10, where youhave little choice over how many tricks you will win (withthere being significant variance depending on how the other players choose toplay the trick); good cards are holdings such as A-K-5-2, which can winzero, one, or two tricks depending on what you need from them to make your bidexactly.

During the play, it helps to be aware of how many tricks the other playershave taken, and what their bids are. Let's say you are on the sixth trick of aten-trick hand, and the first player leads the two of spades; this is thefirst spade that has been played. The secondplayer follows with the ten, and you are in the third position with Q-4. Willthe queen of spades win a trick for you? If the player in fourth position hasbid one and already taken one, he is unlikely to play the ace or king if youplay the queen. Conversely, if that player has bid three and so far has shownno high cards and taken no tricks, it is likely that they have either the aceor king of spades, and will take the trick (indeed, they may have both.) Inthis case, if you want to take a spade trick, you should probably play thefour and hope to score a trick with the queen on the second spade trick.

Being aware of where the other players stand in relation to their bid alsoallows you to better interfere with their plans. Suppose there are two tricksremaining, and you have the ace of trumps and the two of another suit, needing one more to make yourbid. A trickcomes around to you, with the jack of a third suit the highest card playedthus far. If the player of the jack needs one trick for their bid, you canprevent them from making their bid by playing the ace of trumps and leadingthe two (unless their remaining card happens to be either a trump or of thesame suit as your two.) If, on the other hand, that player has already madetheir bid, you should ditch the two, forcing them to take one more trick thanthey would otherwise want. In general, if you are sure of your bid and justwondering when to take the tricks, you should try to take the tricks thatwould otherwise be won by a player that wants them.

You should also realize that other players will be trying to do the same toyou. This is why bidding zero is difficult in many-card hands; you may have ahand which is unlikely to take any tricks if every player is trying to winevery trick, but if you bid zero, the other players will be attempting toforce you to win tricks. Perhaps on the fourth trick of clubs, another playerleads the three, and you play your last remaining club, the five (havingalready played the six, eight, and jack.) If the other players were tryingto win as many tricks as possible, they would trump here, but if you have bidzero they will gladly discard cards of other suits and give you the trick.Consequently, with holdings such as 8-J, bidding zero is unadvisable as theother players can easily foist a trick off on you.

On each hand, you should also know how many tricks have been bid in all; inparticular, whether the total number of contracted tricks is greater than orless than the number of tricks in the hand. If it is larger, players will bemore aggressive in trying to take tricks; if it is smaller, they will be lessaggressive. In particular, if you are third or fourth to bid and the number oftricks already bid is high, you can bid zero with more impunity, as the otherplayers will doubtlessly focus more on taking their allotment in a time ofshortage than on forcing you to take a trick.

6. Napoleon
Napoleon is a card game for five or six players, which in itself is rare.In addition to this, it also has the unique feature of secret (and changingfrom hand to hand) partnerships, only known by one player. This intrigue inturn leads to a type of strategy which is essentially unique, as players tryto guess what the partnerships are, and avoid putting all of their eggs in onebasket.
Players: 5-6 players. Rules described below are for six players; seethe five-player addendum at the end.
Playing time: 60-90 minutes; this time can be changed by playing toa different ending point.
The Deal: Each player receives eightcards and the remaining four are set aside in the kitty; deal starts atan arbitrary point and rotates to the left. Each player, starting with dealer,either bids a number higher than the previous high or passes. The object ofNapoleon is to take face cards in tricks; the number bid is the number of facecards (between 1 and 16) that the bidder contracts to take. (Aces count asface cards in Napoleon.) You must bidhigher than the previous bid; you cannot bid equal to it. The bidding endswhen all players pass; the highest bidder then becomes Napoleon for the hand. If you pass, you mayre-enter the bidding at a later time; passing is not the same as folding in poker or other such games.
Pre-hand Procedures: After the bidding, Napoleon names thetrump suit. He or she then looks at the four cards in the kitty, and canexchange up to four cards from his or her hand with cards in the kitty. IfNapoleon discards face cards in the kitty, they do not count towards hisquota; so if you have bid 16, you will not want to do this. At this point,Napoleon has the option of changing the trump suit; if he does so, hiseffective bid is increased by one for the play (but not for scoringafterwards.)

Napoleon then chooses one of the fifty-two cards in the deck to be thesecretary card. The player who holds this card becomes secretaryfor the round; this player is on Napoleon's side, and all face cards hecollects in tricks count towards Napoleon's total. In addition, the secretarycard becomes the highest card in the deck, and is stripped of its suit. Thesecretary card may be played at any time, even if the secretary has cardsremaining in the suit led, and automatically wins the trick. If the secretarycard is led, it counts as a trump for purposes of following suit. Note thatthe identity of the secretary is unknown to both Napoleon and the otherplayers until the secretary card is played. If Napoleon names a card in hisown hand as the secretary card, he has no partner (but the card retains all ofits value as above.)
The Play: Napoleon makes the opening lead, and play proceeds as anordinary trick-taking game. If at the end, Napoleon and the secretarytogether have taken a number of face cards equal to or greater than the numberbid, they win; otherwise, the other players win. Extraneous talking is ofcourse allowed, but Napoleon is only allowed to say two things relevant to thegame: 'Be careful, Secretary,' and 'Take it, Secretary.' The latter commentcommunicates to the secretary that Napoleon wants him to take the trick, andtypically he will play the secretary card. Of course, the secretary may havealready played to the trick, in which case the command is useless. As avariant, you can make the command require the secretary to play thesecretary card at his or her next turn. The former comment is just a generalwarning.
Scoring: If Napoleon wins, he gets a number of points equal to thefollowing: 2 if the bid is eleven or below, the bid minus nine if the bid isbetween 12 and 15, and 10 if the bid is 16. (This is the original bid, and isnot increased by 1 if Napoleon changes trump suit after looking at thekitty.) The secretary receives a number of points equal to half Napoleon'stotal (round down.) If Napoleon names the secretary card to be in his ownhand, he gets the secretary's points in addition to his own.

If Napoleon is defeated, each player other than Napoleon and the secretaryreceives two points. Like Oh Hell, Napoleon scoring systems vary; if you meetsomeone who knows how to play Napoleon and who did not learn it from thisbook, they are likely to have a different scoring system.

The game ends when one player amasses a total of 21 points. This number can bechanged up or down depending on how long you want to the game to be.
Strategy: In the bidding, it pays to bid aggressively. Having along trump suit is more important than having exceptionally high cards; longtrumps allow you to control the hand. Remeber that as Napoleon, you have lotsof things that can go right for you: you may find high cards or trumps in thekitty, defenders may be scared to drop high cards early, or you may end upwith a secretary who also has other high cards and can win tricks for you.

As a defender, your task is very difficult, as you do notknow who the secretary is. In general, it may very well be the case that youronly hope is to discard face cards early in the play, as Napoleon willtypically lose his tricks early (as opposed to at the end, when players haveprobably saved face cards in order to have a chance at winning tricks.)However, if you drop them on the wrong tricks, you may give them to thesecretary and doom your efforts; discarding face cards that may win tricks, inparticular, is difficult to do, as you're giving the card to someone whoseloyalties you are unsure of as opposed to winning it yourself (and you know which side you're on.) Nevertheless, often you must bite thebullet. Especially with face cards which will not win tricks, such as jacks,you may be best served by giving them to another player in a trick, as opposedto possibly having to discard it on a trick of Napoleon's later. One goodstrategy as a defender is to realize that if a certain player (i.e. one whohas already collected numerous face cards) is the secretary, you have nochance at defeating Napoleon, and then proceed under the assumption that thatplayer is not the secretary. Obviously, it behooves you to figure out which player isthe secretary as soon as possible; if Napoleon names a high card (as isusually the case), the other players who have been bidding are more likely tobe the secretary.

As Napoleon, your first task is to exchange cards with the kitty and thenchoose a secretary. Generally, it is a good idea to void yourself in as manysuits as possible; you should have at least four trumps, including two of thetop three. A secondary long suit is better than a balanced hand; after youdraw trumps, you can then run the cards in that suit. Don't be afraid todiscard singleton jacks and queens, as these will almost certainly end up inthe hands of the opponents if you keep them in your hand (and prevent you fromtrumping that trick.) The secretary card has two purposes; first of all, itgives you an ally, and second of all, it allows you to eliminate a card fromthe game (remember, the secretary card becomes suitless.) Thus, if you havethe king and queen of trumps, and call the ace as the secretary card, yourking and queen become the two highest trumps. Generally, you should call thehighest missing trump or, if you have no problem with trumps (having the toptwo and length, or the top three), an ace in a side suit where you have a king(thus making your king high.)

Really Fun Card Games

During the play, you want to milk the confusion among the other players as muchas possible. Generally, this involves losing your tricks early in the game,where the opponents are suspicious of one another, not knowing which one ofthem is the secretary. Also, remember that if everyone follows suit, youcannot lose more than four face cards in a given trick; losing these tricksearly increases the chance of everyone in fact following suit (and beingunable to drop jacks and queens of other suits on the trick.) Save thesecretary card as long as possible; invoke it only if you think that the trickbeing taken contains (or will contain) enough face cards for you to lose yourcontract, or if the current trick is the last trick you cannot win in yourhand. It is far more important for the defenders to know who the secretary isthan it is for you to know, and as such this should be concealed as long aspossible.

As secretary, you are the only player in the game who must keep a poker face.Try to encourage other players to drop face cards on your tricks early; asdefenders will be doing this as well, you should be able to blend in somewhat(don't be too blatant.) In general, you should play the secretary card onlywhen Napoleon instructs you to; he knows what he's doing, and knows where hisweakness that needs to be covered is. Of course, if there's a trick with a lotof face cards, you may want to go ahead and take it - especially if you havestrength in other suits that Napoleon does not know about (perhaps a side suitace you want to lead.) A good rule of thumb is that you should reveal thesecretary card on your own if and only if you are sure that you and Napoleonwill be able to take the rest of the tricks.

6a. Rules for Five Players
Five-player Napoleon is similar to six-player Napoleon. Introduce a jokerintothe deck, making 53 cards in all. The joker is similar to the secretary card;it has no suit, and can be played at any time, even if its owner is not voidin that suit. It is higher than any other card, and thus automatically wins the trick, except that itis outranked by the secretary card (unless it is thesecretary card itself.) Deal ten cards to each player, with the remainingthree cards in the kitty. Everything else is the same. In the five-playergame, expect bids to be lower; Napoleon has a larger percentage of the otherplayers on his side, but this is offset by the fact that he gets to exchange amuch smaller portion of his hand with the kitty, severely limiting his abilityto void himself of suits and otherwise tailor his hand.7. Liars' Poker
Liars' Poker is a rather unique game, in that there is no proscription against looking at youropponents' cards. Indeed, this makes the game perfect for playing in cramped spaces, such as car tripsor lines. The game itself is very simple, but the element of espionage and coalitions makes Liars'Poker a primarily social game. Like poker, the game involves lots of bluffing; unlike poker, wageringis not involved.
Players: At least two, and in theory unlimited. In practice, the game tops out at aroundeight or nine. Multiple decks may be desired for games with many players.
Playing time: Can be adjusted based on the number of cards in the hand. A good rule of thumbis that each round will take two minutes; the number of rounds is approximately equal to the totalnumber of cards.
The Deal: On the first deal, each player gets some number of cards; this number can beadjusted depending on how long you want the game to take. We recommend the following: with two players,nine cards; with three players, seven; with four players, six; with five players, five; with sixplayers, four; with seven or more players, three. In each subsequent deal, the player who lost theprevious deal gets one fewer card than in the previous round; everyone else gets the same number ofcards. Thus, in each successive deal, one fewer total card is in play than in the previous deal.
The Play: Starting with the player who lost the previous deal (in the first deal, the dealerstarts), each player going around to the left names a poker hand or challenge the previousperson. This poker hand must be one of thefollowing, in ascending order: a single card, a pair, two pairs, three of a kind, a straight, a fullhouse, four of a kind, a straight flush, five of a kind, six of a kind, etc.. Deuces are wild. When youname a hand, you must provide all of the relevant information; for instance, 'three queens,' 'a tenthrough ace straight,' or 'thesix through ten of hearts.' You do not need to name every card; 'a seven' rather than 'the seven ofhearts' suffices. Note that a flush is not a valid Liars' Poker hand. Within each category, ordering isas in poker; for instance, a full house of eights and fives is higher than one of fives and eights, anda six-through-ten straight beats a four-through-eight straight.

The hand ends when someone elects to challenge the previous person rather than name a higher hand. When a challenge occurs, everyone lays down their cards. If, among the cards of all the players atthe table, the poker hand named exists, the challenger loses the deal; if the hand does not exist, theplayer who named it loses the deal. Note that the person on the other side of the challenge gainsnothing. The exact poker hand named must exist; for instance, if the hand challenged is 'three queens,'and there happen to be four kings among the collective cards of the table, this is irrelevant; thechallenge fails if and only if there are three queens (including deuces) among the cards in play.

Unlike most games, Liars' Poker specifically encourages cheating. Any trick is acceptable for gaining aglimpse of other players' cards; for instance, you may look over their shoulder or off reflectivesurfaces. The only thing which is verboten is physically touching their cards.
Scoring: As mentioned before, after each hand the player who has lost gets one fewer card inthe next hand. If a player has no cards remaining, he or she is out of the game; as a courtesy, aplayerwho has just been winnowed down to one card is allowed to pick their card out of the fanned(face-down) deck. The goal of the game is to be the last player with cards remaining.
Strategy: Don't be afraid to look at people's cards! The skill in Liars' Poker comes inestimating the probabilities of various scenarios of cards in play based on other people's bids, andthe more hard information you have, the better off you'll be. To take an extreme example, if you'vemanaged to peek at everyone else's cards, you know precisely what the cards in play are, and when itcomes around to you you know whether a challenge will succeed or not.

If no one looks at anyone else's cards, the amount of information you have is directly proportional tothe number of cards in your hand. This means that a player with more cards is less likely to lose agiven round, making Liars' Poker a positive-feedback game of sorts. As such, if you and another playerhave few cards left, it may be quite advantageous for you to combine forces and share your cards witheach other; this doesn't affect the procedure of the game (i.e. you still take turns whenever your turnwould normally come up), but it gives both of you more information. Coalitions are common, especiallywhen the game is down to three players, at which point the two players who are behind will typicallygang up on the player who is ahead. Remember, though, that at the point when your hands are mutuallyvisible, you are potentially quite vulnerable to the sneak attacks of other players' roving eyes. Inextreme cases, it may be impossible for you to pick up your cards without anyone else seeing them.Sometimes, it is better to not look at your cards at all, or at least until you have to; low calls willtypically not get challenged, since there is little benefit to challenging someone unless you feel thatyou yourself will get challenged on any higher bid.

It is very important to take other players' bids into consideration. If a player bids three queens, helikely has queens; if you are staring at a queen and a deuce, four queens or even five is a sound bid.(Remember that, at least in theory, the other player made their bid ignorant of your hand.) Conversely,though, it is often worthwhile to bid something you don't have at low levels where you're relativelycertain you won't get challenged, in order to trick others. At the beginning of the game, about halfthe deck will be in play; with the four deuces, a bid of three of a kind will typically not getchallenged, so use these bids to your advantage.

It is very difficult to be certain that the player before you doesn't have their bid, and because ofthe system it tends to be unprofitable to challenge players unless either the odds are extremelyagainst them or you think you will get challenged and lose on any higher bid. In particular, if you bidsomething that the player in front of you has bid (typically bids go around the circle about twice, sothey are likely to have bid something), they will be stuck between a rock and a hard place. In thisvein, the player in front of you is the most important one as far as looking at their cards goes; ifyou can look at their cards without them noticing, in particular, when you bid something they have(especially if they haven't bid it yet), they are likely to think that you have some and not challengeyou. Remember, you can't lose if you aren't challenged and don't challenge anyone.

Liars' Poker is essentially a game of psychology. Try to figure out the tendencies of the otherplayers; if someone seems to never have what he bids (everyone's cards are revealed at the end of everyhand, so you can actually track this), don't take his bids into consideration. If someone is reluctantto challenge, try to sit behind them. Make deals with people; if the guy in front of you wants to bidsomething, let him. Try to gang up on the player in front, since his position will only get better astime goes on. Show your cards to other players when it's advantageous to you; if someone is hesitatingabout challenging, and you don't have any of the cards in question, you can often convince them tochallenge by showing them your useless cards, especially if you once claimed to have something usefulfor the current call. (A better strategy is to get them to commit to challenging if you don't have any beforeshowing them your cards.) Similarly, you can often avoid being challenged (the guy in front of youdoesn't want to challenge you since he might lose, but he may not know what to bid) by showing yourhand to the person in a position to challenge you; this is a win-win situation, since it gives him moreinformation as to what to bid. In a game with lots of players, team up with people early, and try tobid high enough that the bidding will be challenged before it gets around to you (but not so high thatyou'll be challenged.) Bid confidently, as if you know what you're doing, even when you don't. Last butnot least, don't get suckered in by other people's psychological ploys, like the ones mentioned here.

8. Psychological Jujitsu
While Liars' Poker is mostly a game of psychology, Psychological Jujitsu is entirely a game ofpsychology. There is very little luck involved inthe game, and it's not a game where excessive thought or speed will help you. Simply put, in order towin, you must figure out what your opponent is thinking.
Players: At least two; best with two or three. If more than three are playing, PsychologicalJujitsu requires an additional deck or additional decks of cards.
Playing time: 5-10 minutes per hand.
The Deal: One suit of cards is set aside, shuffled, and placed face down on the table. Eachplayer receives afull set of cards, comprising A, 2, 3, ..., K; these represent the numbers 1 through 13 in the obviousway. The game can in fact be played without a deck of cards, simply giving each player tokens labeled 1through 13 (or any other number), and having an extra set of tokens bearing these values.
The Play: Psychological Jujitsu consists of thirteen rounds. On each round, the top card ofthe extra suit is turned up and auctioned off. Players choose secretly which of the cards in their handthey are playing, and simultaneously reveal their choices. These are bids for the current card; thehighest-ranked card played wins the auctioned item, which is worth a number of points equal to its rank(ace being 1, jack 11, queen 12, king 13, and all other cards their numeric value.) If multiple playerstie, the card is thrown out. In any case, all cards played to that round are discarded. Each playerstarts with thirteen cards, and there are thirteen rounds, so each player will submit each bid exactlyonce over the course of a hand. When a player wins a card, that card is placed face-up in front of theplayer.In the case of a tie on a given round, the way we have presented is only one variant. Another variantis to throw out all tied cards and give the card to the highest card that is not tied; another variantis to have all players take back the cards they have played and put the card up for auction on thebottom of the deck.
Scoring: At the end of a hand, each player's score is the total of the ranks of the cardsthey have won. There are 91 points in all. The game can either be played by the hand or cumulatively;in the latter case, players add their scores from successive hands until a player reaches apredetermined limit (200, for instance.) In this case, one can play to either end the game immediatelyonce a player reaches 200, or finish the game at the conclusion of any hand which puts a player over200.
Strategy: In the two-player game, the best strategy is to always play one rank higher thanyour opponent, except that when he plays 13, you play 1. This will allow you to win 12 of the 13 cards,and even if your opponent takes the king, you will win by the potent margin of 78 to 13.

Unfortunately, employing this strategy requires figuring out what your opponent is going to play.Clearly it makes more sense to play high cards on the cards that are worth more, but there is nospecific strategy that can work, since your opponent can always play the above strategy to dominateyou. Playing a card one higher than the card up for bids is good, since the natural correlation is toplay a card about equal to the one up for bids, but by the same token playing a card two higher is alsogood, since your opponent is likely to play a card one higher. And so forth. There's obviously abreaking point to this argument, since by playing a card two higher you are essentially conceding thetwo highest cards, and this will eventually result in a loss.

Don't be afraid to play very low cards when very high ones are up for bid. You'll lose, but youropponent will have expended a much higher card in the process, leaving you with a significant advantagefor the remainder of the game. In general, you want to try to lose by a lot when you lose and win byonly a little when you win. With more players, the strategy is murkier; assuming you play the mainvariant described here, it is a reasonable strategy to play your highest cards on mid-range cards (8,9, 10) and hope that the other players all play their highest cards on higher cards, cancelling eachother out. But in general the optimal strategy is obviously highly dependent on what your opponents aredoing.

Finally, keep track of what your opponents have played; it's important when you're trying to figure outtheir decision process.

9. Canadian Fish
Canadian Fish, like Creights, can loosely be called a variant of a simple children's card game. Inthis case the game in question is Go Fish, and, like Creights, the variant is far more complicated thanthe original. However, unlike Creights, the rules of the game are very simple; the complexity comes inthe actual play. This provides an excellent combination of a game that is easily explained butcomplicated enough to provide a superb form of mental exercise. Unlike most of the games here, memoryis an extremely important part of Canadian Fish, and not just memory for what cards have been played,as is usually the case in card games.
Players: Exactly six. I suppose in theory the game could be played with a different number,but it wouldn't work nearly as well.
Playing time: 15-30 minutes per hand. The length can vary wildly from hand to hand, and alsodepends heavily on how analytical the people you're playing with are.
The Deal: Remove the eights from the deck, leaving 48 cards. This splits the deck into eightsuits -- the two through seven of each suit, and the nine through ace of each suit. Whenever we saythe word suit in this section, we refer to one of these eight six-card suits. Deal eight cardstoeach of the six players.

Weird Card Games

The Play: In a hand of Canadian Fish, there are two teams of three; the teams alternate asyou go around the circle, so your teammates are the players two to the left and two to the right ofyou. You may wish to assign teams randomly or mix things up after each hand.By convention, the eldest Canadian at the table goes first. If there are noCanadians, decide who goes first however you want, such as picking the person who was in Canada mostrecently, who has been to Canada the most times, etc.. On your turn, you do the following.

1. Ask any opponent for a specific card. You cannot ask for a card that is in your hand, and youcannot ask for a card unless you have a card in that suit. For example, to ask for the seven of clubs,you must have the two, three, four, five, or six of clubs (you can of course have multiple low clubs),and you cannot have the seven.
2. If the player asked has that card, they must give it to you. If they do not, it becomes their turn.

At any time, any player, regardless of whose turn it is, may declare a suit by saying 'declare.'Once a player does this, silence reigns until the declaration is finished. The player must now assignall six cards of a suit among the three members of that team; if I am on a team with Bob and Rachel, Icould, for instance, say, 'Declare: I have the two and five of clubs, Bob has the three, four, andseven, and Rachel has the six.' Regardless of correctness, all of the cards of that suit are removedfrom play; if I am correct, our team 'wins' the suit, and if I am incorrect in any way the other team'wins' the suit. You can only declare cards to be in your teammates' hands; if I have five of thelow clubs and I know which of my opponents has the last one, I cannot declare this. Similarly, if myopponents have all six of the cards, I cannot scoop them by declaring the suit. You are allowed todeclare suits even if you don't have any of them, though this is rare.The declaration, whether correct or incorrect, does not affect whose turn it is; this remains the same,and play continues as usual. The only exception occurs when the declaration removes all remaining cardsfrom the hand of the player whose turn it is; in that case, that player must (with no input fromanyone) transfer control to one of their teammates with remaining cards. Players with no cards are outof the game, and are not allowed to declare suits.If at any point one team has all of the remaining cards, nothing further can be said. They must declareall of the remaining suits; anyone can declare these suits, but the first person to say 'declare' mustdeclare the suit as usual. The game ends when all eight suits have been declared.If at any point you screw up by asking for a card you have, or a card in a suit you don't have, thesuit containing that card is immediately removed from play and won by the other team.Conventions are explicitly forbidden in Canadian Fish. You are of course allowed to make inferences,but you cannot, for instance, agree beforehand that if you ask an opponent for the jack of a suit, youhave the queen or king, either in secret or openly.
Scoring: One point for each suit that your team has won. The team with more suits wins;score is typically not kept, but if it is, each player gets a number of points equal to thenumber of suits their team has won. The game should consist of a fixed number of deals; six is a goodnumber. Teams can either be kept the same throughout or mixed up. In any case, the goal is simply towin as many suits as possible.
Strategy: Obviously, if one could remember everything that has been asked, one would bedoing well. In practice, most humans cannot remember this much, so you must decide what to remember.Since you can never acquire cards in a suit that you don't have, it is obviously best to focus yourattention on the suits you do have. It is usually better to retain perfect information about a fewsuits than imperfect information about all of the suits, though not always.

Something that is extremely important is to keep control away from dangerous opponents. Your team canconspire to blackball one or two of the opponents so that it is never their turn, and this is often agood strategy. For example, suppose that everyone knows (because they've seen the cards beingexchanged) that one of your opponents has the two through six of clubs. He has asked both you and yourright-hand teammate about the seven, and neither of you have it. If one of your opponents had theseven, they would declare the suit now, since they know the location of the other low clubs; therefore,your left-hand teammate must have the seven. If the opponent with the low clubs gets a turn, he willtake the seven from your left-hand teammate and they will win the suit. If, however, you never ask hima question, it will never be his turn, and he cannot take the suit.

Therefore, you should never ask him a question. It is not permitted to say things like this explicitly;you can't tell your teammates not to ask him, but hopefully they've been paying enough attention torealize what's going on. Of course, your opponents, if they've been paying attention, should know notto ask your teammate with the seven any questions. This is fairly frequent, and is one reason why youshouldn't totally ignore suits even if you don't have any cards in them. Each game is different, andmuch of the skill in the game lies in figuring out what information is important, since you usuallycan't remember everything.

If someone asks you about a card in a suit, and you have a different card or multiple cards in thatsuit, it is often a good idea to ask them about a card in that suit, although this does run the risk ofgiving away information (namely that you have another card in that suit.) Sometimes the best strategyif you have multiple cards in a suit is to lie low while other people ask about it; you end up with alot of information, sometimes enough to place the entire suit. For purposes of memory load, you shouldgenerally try to clean out suits sequentially, so you have less to remember (since once a suit is outof play you can forget everything you know about it.

If you have all six cards of a suit, or if you know where a suit is, it can on occasion be useful tonot declare it. By saving the suit, you increase the chance that other people will ask you questionssince you appear to have more useful cards than you actually do; you can also declare the suit at anadvantageous moment when it's your turn in order to transfer control to an appropriate teammate. If youhave all the cards, there is no risk in holding onto them, since you're going to get the suiteventually. If you don't have all the cards yourself, the risk in holding onto them is that yourteammates may ask unnecessary questions about that suit, so it is usually best to declare these as soonas possible. Of course, if everyone knows you have all six cards in a suit, there is no benefit toholding onto them.

If your teammate asks about a suit that you have, be aware! You know that they also have a card in thatsuit, and so by teaming up often you can tease all the cards from the opponents. In particular, if youdon't have the card that they asked about, you can do well to ask for it yourself, since you have abetter chance of being correct.

In general, you shouldn't declare a suit unless you are absolutely certain. If your team has all sixcardsof a suit, they're not going anywhere; the only way your opponents can win the suit is if you declareit wrong. The benefit of declaring earlier is that your teammates won't waste questions asking aboutthe suit, but this is usually small compared to the potential loss of the suit to your opponents.Asking a question is not as big an advantage as you might think, because your opponents get just asmuch information from a failed question as your teammates do. Note that if you ask a question about asuit that your team has all six cards of, your opponents in fact get no useful information.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule; the most obvious is in the end-game situation, whichoccurs surprisingly frequently, where only one team has cards remaining and they need to declare a suitor suits. In this case, you're not getting any more information, so the person with the mostinformation (usually, but not always, the person with the most cards in the suit)should declare the suit. Often this comes down to a 50-50 guess.

A more subtle reason why you might want to declare a suit that you're not sure of is for transferringcontrol. Let's say there are two suits left, the low clubs and the high diamonds. You have the four,five, and six of clubs, and you know that your left-hand teammate has the three. You know that one ofyour teammates has the two and the other one has the seven, but you don't know which. Your right-handteammate also has the king of diamonds; your opponent has the other five diamonds, and has recentlyasked both you and your left-hand opponent for it, so everyone knows where the last diamond is.

In this case, you should guess the clubs. Maybe you could improve the club knowledgeif you asked the opponent for the three (and, incidentally, this isin general good strategy when you have all six cards of a suit; you know the questions will fail, butit's the only way to convey information about the suit), allowing one of your teammates to declare.However, if you did this, you would lose the diamonds for certain. A better strategy is to guess theclubs, which you will get right 50% of the time; regardless of success, though, you are out of cardsand you can transfer control to your right-hand teammate, who will acquire all the diamonds from theremaining opponent. This gives you the diamonds always and the clubs 50% of the time, which ispreferable to the other scenario, where you always lose the diamonds and get the clubs some percentageof the time. (It would have to be 150% for this to be the preferred choice.)

In general, stay alert and you will do well.

10. Spielen
Spielen is a fast-paced game which is played almost entirely outside the box. It is unique amongall the games here for two reasons: first, it is the only one of the ten games which is played in realtime (as opposed to turn-based), and secondly, it is the only game where you plan strategy with ateammate beforehand. (Along with Canadian Fish, it is one of only two team games.) Spielen breaks downinto two phases; the phase before the game is devious planning, while the game itself is frenetic.
Players: Players play in teams of two. Two teams of two (four players) is ideal; the gamecan certainly support three teams, and perhaps four, although that's stretching things a bit.
Playing time: One hand takes around two minutes. The game consists of a number of hands,usually around ten; before a game, there is a planning session which can take as long as you want. Fiveto ten minutes is probably about right.
The Planning Session: During the planning session, the two members on each team get togetherin secret to make up codes for the game. See the later sections for what the point of these codes are,as well as some sample codes.
The Deal: Deal four cards to each player.
The Play and Scoring: The play goes as follows: the dealer turns up, simultaneously, fourcards from thetop of the deck. Players now simultaneously may opt to exchange cards from their hand for an equalnumber of cards from the board, simply throwing them into the middle (face up) and taking other cards.You maynever at any point have more than four cards in your hand, although you may have less than four cardsfor an instant or even for a significant amount of time. (There is little benefit to doing so, althoughit might certainly confuse people.) When no one wants any of the cards on the board, the dealer sweepsthem into a discard pile and draws four new cards from the top of the deck. If the deck runs out ofcards, the discard pile is reshuffled.

The goal of the game is to get four of a kind. Well, not really; the goal of the game is to get four ofa kind and convey this information to your partner without letting the opponents catch on. This iswhere the codes come in. During a game of Spielen, people should be talking. Generally this is justharmless banter, but you're allowed to talk about the game (unlike most games, where table talk isdiscouraged.) The only things that aren't allowed are 'under-the-table' things; you can't kick yourpartner under the table, or say things in a foreign language that only they understand, or anythinglike that. All communication must be observable by everyone, although nonverbal communication such asplacing your hands on the table, rearranging your cards, and winking is all fair game.

The game usually ends when one person has four of a kind and their partner knows it (because it's beencommunicated somehow.) At this point, the partner calls 'Games' (English for 'Spielen.') If theirpartner does in fact have four of a kind, that team gets a point (and the round ends); if they don't,the other team gets a point.

However, if you think that one of the opponents has four of a kind, you can scoop them by calling'Anti-Games.' If you are correct -- if either opponent has four of a kind -- your team gets two points,while if you're wrong the other team gets two points. So the goal is not just to tell your partner thatyou have four of a kind, but to do so without letting the other people crack the code. You must set allcodes beforehand; you cannot confer between deals if your opponents have cracked your code.

Uncommon Card Games

But wait, there's more. If you maneuver it so that both you and your partner have four of a kind,either of you may call 'Double Games,' which is worth two points; again, your opponents get the samenumber of points for an incorrect call. If you think both of your opponents have four of a kind, youmay call 'Anti-Double Games,' which is worth four points for you if you're right and four for youropponents if you're wrong. This is, of course, exceedingly daring.

In many cases, especially after the code has been cracked, two people may declare at the same time.Whichever team started speaking first has the declaration that is evaluated; if it's simultaneous, thenno one gets any points and the round is declared over. The first team to accumulate 6 points wins (fora longer game, play to 11.)

Strategy: Almost all of the strategy lies in concocting codes, although if you're clever youcan keep track of cards. In practice, because the game is so chaotic, this is pretty difficult; manyplayers may be exchanging various numbers of cards at once, and certain cards may be picked up off thetable before you even really have a chance to see them. Another non-code method is simply to observewhether people are exchanging cards; obviously, if someone has four of a kind they're unlikely to beexchanging any cards, although proceeding from this to a sure inference is tricky.

Codes come in many forms. The more complicated a code, the harder it is for opponents to crack, but asthe code complexity grows so too does the difficulty of remembering it. Similarly, you want codes thatcan innocuously be slipped into everyday life, but the more natural they are the greater the chancethat you will slip up and give the code by accident. For example, I once had a code with a partnerconsisting of all seven-letter words; we must have given the code a million times by accident. Ingeneral, things that require a lot of parsing time are bad codes due to the pace of the game. You'renot allowed to stop and think during the play; if you're the dealer, you're expected to swipe the cardswithin a couple of seconds after people have stopped exchanging, and if you're not the dealer, thecards will be swiped quickly so you don't really have time to stop.

Fun Card Games

Word codes are generally decent: for example, if you say the name of a state. This is, of course, easyto crack, so you might change it to saying the name of a state beginning with a consonant, or one westof the Mississippi, or something. A decent meta-strategy is to wait for some amount of time after thecode is given before saying Games; the downside of this is that the other team might say Games in themeantime.

Unusual Playing Card Games

Tapping your fingers on the table is reasonable, but the problem with this and other physical cues isthat your partner might not be paying attention to you, and so you may have to give the code repeatedlybefore they pick up on it. The opponents are likely to pick up on it in the meantime; after all, thereare twice as many of them, so if everyone knows the code the chance of your teammate getting it firstis only 1/3. And also, it's worth half as much to call Games as it is to call Anti-Games, so having acode that's hard to crack is pretty important, even if your partner doesn't pick up on it immediately.

You should, of course, have several codes, ideally in different media (in other words, a couple ofverbal codes and a couple of physical codes.) But the more codes you have, the harder they are toremember; four is probably a reasonable number. Since you can't change the codes during the game,you'll want multiple codes in case some of them get cracked, as well as in case your partner isoblivious to one of them. The game is fast enough that you'll forget things from time to time.

(c) Mike Develin, 2002. Thanks to everyone who taught me these games and everyone who I've played themwith, especially Joon Pahk, whose writeups of Creights and Barbu were the basis for the ones appearinghere.