A card game that's been a great hit with the kids on holiday. It's a bit like whist except you bid for tricks on each round and get a higher score if you fulfil your score exactly. You need three or more players. The aim of the game is to score points by guessing how many tricks you’ll win – and then fulfilling your guess. Ace is high.
To play: choose a dealer, who starts by dealing one card to each player. The dealer then turns over the top card left on the pack which is trumps. The dealer moves after each round in a clockwise direction. In the next deal two cards are dealt, in the third, three cards and so on until there are not enough cards to deal the hands (with four players that is 13 rounds, with five players, 10 rounds – if there are no cards left for trumps, then the round is played with no trumps). The first player to the left of the dealer bids on the number of tricks he expects to win. In the first round, he can bid one or ‘nullo’ if he expects to win no tricks. Everyone else then makes their bid, following in a clockwise direction. The player to the left of the dealer plays his hand first. He leads with any card he has (in the first hand, with the only card he has), and the other players have to follow suit if they can. Alternatively, they can trump or discard. The winner of the trick picks up the cards and leads the next trick, and so on until the hand is finished. Scoring: in each round you win 10 points plus the number of tricks for scoring your estimated number of bids. You score nothing if you do not score the exact number of tricks you estimated. If you call ‘nullo’ and succeed in winning no tricks, you score 5 points. The winner is the person with the highest total score at the end of all the deals. |
