Card Games For Dummies. Barry Rigal

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      Failing to follow suit

      Most games have rules that require you to play a card in the suit led if you can; and indeed, that is your ethical requirement. However, if you can follow suit but don’t, you incur no penalty — you only face a penalty for being caught failing to follow suit! The penalty varies from game to game but is generally a pretty severe one.

      In failing to follow suit, you have three terms to bear in mind:

       Revoke: The sinful failure to follow suit when you’re able is known as revoking or reneging. (The latter term seems to be exclusive to the United States and is now synonymous with the revoke.)

       Trump: Putting a card from the trump suit down when a suit is led, in which you have no cards. If you play a trump, you stand to win the trick — so long as no one else subsequently plays a higher trump.

       Discard: The laying down of an off-suit card when you’re unable to follow suit is called a discard or renounce, although the former term is more common these days. Discarding implies that you’re letting go a card in a plain, non-trump suit rather than trumping.

      Say your hand consists solely of clubs, diamonds, and hearts, and you’re playing out a hand where hearts are trump:

       If another player leads a club and you play a diamond or a heart on the lead, you revoke.

       If a player leads a spade and you play a heart, you trump the spade.

       If you play a diamond on the lead of a spade, you discard.

      Playing out of turn

      For one reason or another, players occasionally lose track of who won the previous trick. If a player neglects to remember that they are supposed to lead, a potentially long and embarrassing pause ensues until someone plucks up enough courage to ask that player whether they’re thinking about what to do next or if they’re spacing out.

      More frequently, however, somebody leads out of turn, under the false impression that the action is on them. If this happens, the general rule is that the next player can accept that lead by following to the trick, if they want to do so. Alternatively, they may be so hypnotized by the sight of the card that they may genuinely think it’s their turn to play, so they follow suit innocently.

Either way, the general rule is that the next player’s following legitimizes the original mistake. However, some games state that up until the faulty trick is completed, if anyone spots the error, you still have time to pick the whole trick up and correct the error.

      Exposing yourself to public ridicule

      The rules about exposed cards (accidentally dropping a card on the table as opposed to playing it) tend to vary, depending on whether you’re playing a partnership game or playing on your own:

       In an individual game, the rules tend to be fairly lax; you can normally pick up your exposed cards, and the game continues. (Of course, your opponent benefits from seeing part of your hand, which is considered punishment enough for the error.)

       In a partnership game, the consequences of exposing a card are much more severe because you simultaneously give unauthorized information to both your partner and your opponents. Often, the rules of a game require you to play the exposed cards at the first opportunity, or your partner may be forbidden from playing the suit you let slip. These are the Draconian rules in place with games such as Bridge, for example.

MISS MANNER’S GUIDE TO CARD-GAME ETIQUETTE

      Some elements of card-game etiquette relate to basic good manners and polite behavior, and some deal with areas that come perilously close to cheating. On the etiquette front, for example, you shouldn’t pick up your cards until the deal is finished — if for no other reason than you may cause the dealer to expose a card if your fingers get in the way.

      After you pick up your hand, avoid indicating in any way whether you’re pleased or unhappy with its contents. This is particularly important in a partnership game where you can’t divulge such potentially useful information.

      The idea that you should play card games in silence may give the impression that you can’t enjoy yourself — that you should focus on winning to the exclusion of having fun. That isn’t the case, but you should avoid conversation if it gives away information that you’re not entitled to pass on or if the sole purpose of your remarks is to upset or irritate your partner or opponents. (The rules in Poker are a little different. Conversation during a poker game is one way for players to influence their opponents.)

      The tempo of the way you play your cards can also be very revealing. You can make it clear by the way you play your card that you have doubt or no doubt at all as to what to do. You can’t eliminate doubt altogether, but you can try to make your mind up before playing a card so that you avoid conveying information by your tempo to your partner and opponents. Again, though, in Poker, anything goes!

Selecting the Best Card Game

      All the card games in this book are excellent, of course — I provide only the cream of the crop. However, depending on the number of players and your collective experience and expectations, some games are more suitable than others. Depending on your needs, the following lists recommend certain games for various situations.

      As a general point, though, the best card game to play is probably the one that some of your players already know. You pick up strategies of the game, as well as its customs and traditions, much faster by playing with experienced players rather than in a group consisting entirely of beginners.

      If you have a specific number of players:

       Solitaire games: Accordion and Poker Patience if you’re short on space; La Belle Lucie if you can spread yourself out. (See Chapter 2 for Solitaire games.)

       Two-player games: Gin Rummy (Chapter 4), Spite and Malice (Chapter 2), and Cribbage (Chapter 16).

       Three-player games: Pinochle (Chapter 14) and Ninety-Nine (Chapter 9).

       Four-player games: Bridge (Chapter 12), Euchre (Chapter 10), Hearts (Chapter 13), and Spades (Chapter 11).

       Five- to eight-player games: Hearts (Chapter 13) and Oh Hell! (Chapter 9).

       Eight or greater player games: Eights (СКАЧАТЬ