The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (154 page)

while South gets twice as many turns, since South is standing in for

North as wel . The order of play is essential y E-S-W-S-E-S-W-S etc.

If either East or West runs out of cards next the remaining player

wil continue playing against South.

wil continue playing against South.

As between six players, the same principle applies, though it may

seem confusing at first. Given one team consisting of West, North

and South-East, the other of North-West, East and South:

1. West at acks North-West and runs out of cards, but North-West

picks up.

2. North at acks East and East picks up.

3. South-East at acks South, but South fends this of .

4. South should now at ack West, but West has no cards, so

South at acks North as the next opponent in rotation.

5. North fends the at ack of , and at acks North-West, who has to

pick up.

6. Now South-East (the next player of the W-N-SE team) at acks

East (the next player of the NW-E-S team), and East picks up.

7. It is now for North to at ack South. The order of play, after

West runs out of cards, is NW-N-E-SE-S-N-NW-SE-E-N-S-SE-

NW-N-E,and so on.

This play of three against two is awkward, but rarely lasts long.

In the example above, if a second player of the W-N-SE team runs

out of cards next, the remaining player wil take the turns of al

three team members, the other team continuing to play in rotation.

On the other hand, if one of the NW-E-S players runs out of cards,

the play reduces to two against two. The actual rotation wil

depend on just who runs out of cards and when. The principle

remains the same: that the remaining players take turns to play for

their team. If, for example, at turn 7 (above) South beats of North’s

at ack, running out of cards, it wil next be North-West’s turn to

at ack South-East, and the sequence wil continue NW-SE-E-N-NW-

…, which looks similar to a normal four-player game, but played

anticlockwise. If, at turn 6, East had beaten of South-East’s at ack,

running out of cards, it would next be South’s turn to at ack North,

leading to the sequence S-N-NW-SE-S-… Note that in this case the

four surviving players happen to be arranged with partners sit ing

next to each other, rather than opposite.

When a third player drops out, the situation clarifies. Either one

When a third player drops out, the situation clarifies. Either one

team has lost, or the game has become two against one, with the

two players playing alternately for their side.

Chal enge(Svoyi Koziri)

2players, 24-52 cards

Svoyi Koziri, meaning ‘One’s own trump’, first appeared in

Noveyshy russky kartochny igrok (St Petersburg, 1809) with the

implication that it was as popular in Russia as Boston, Whist and

Piquet. A variety of it was first described in English under the name

‘Chal enge’ by Hubert Phil ips in The Pan Book of Card Games

(London, 1953), and said then to have been much played at

Cambridge under the sponsorship of Professor Besicovitch.

Unusual y, it is a card game of ‘perfect information’, being won

entirely by foresight and calculation, like Chess. This is described

first.

Preliminaries Two play with any number of cards which is a

multiple of four, ranking AKQJT98765432 in each suit, as far as it

goes. Phil ips regarded 32 as standard (Seven low), and this is

assumed below.

Object To be the first to run out of cards, leaving them al in the

other player’s hand.

Trumps and deal To start, each player chooses two suits and

nominates one of them as his personal trump. Dealer then deals out

half the pack (16 cards) face up in a row, extracts from them those

of his own suits, and discards the rest. This gives him approximately

half his playing hand. He then distributes to elder, as the first half

of his hand, al the cards of elder’s two suits which are exactly

equivalent to those of his own two.

Example: Suppose dealer chooses black suits and entrumps spades, leaving

elder with red suits of which he entrumps hearts. Then the cards might come out: Dealer KJ97 AQJ

Elder KJ97 AQJ

To complete both hands, each player takes al the remaining

cards of his opponent’s two suits. Each player’s hand is therefore a

mirror image of the other’s, and neither has a strategic advantage

other than that of the lead – if such it be. Each hand should include

at least two cards in every suit. If not, deal again.

Play At each turn, one player leads a card of his choice. Elder leads

first. The other must then either play a bet er card, in which case he

leads next, or else take up al the cards so far played and add them

to his hand, in which case his opponent leads next. A ‘bet er’ card is

a higher card of the suit led, or any card of one’s own personal

trump (if

Chal enge.North, with hearts as personal trump, leads 10 to the

fifth ‘trick’. South, though able to play Q or a personal trump

(clubs), prefers to take al the cards so far played and lead next.

This results in a larger but more powerful hand, and it remains to

be seen whether it wil pay of .

dif erent from the suit led). Note that any card may be led at each

turn: it need not relate in any way to the previous card played.

Winning The first to play his last card wins. As this can take hours,

it may be agreed that a player who fal s asleep during play loses by

default, unless the other is also asleep, in which case it is a draw.

Svoyi Koziri

Of the original game, John McLeod says: ‘In the version of this

Of the original game, John McLeod says: ‘In the version of this

game played in Russia (with 36 cards), there are normal y three or

four players. The players select their trump suits before the game

and the cards are dealt out normal y, not rigged to make the hands

identical. Players normal y hold their cards concealed but

sometimes when the game is reduced to two players they lay them

out on the table, since obviously each knows what the other has.

There are versions where when unable to beat the last card played

the defender only has to pick up a limited number of cards, rather

than the whole pile, and the number of cards to be picked may

depend on the top card of the pile.’

Dudak (‘Bagpipe’)

2-4 players, 32 cards

A Czech game said to be much played by children.

Preliminaries Four players (the best number) each receive eight

cards from a 32-card pack ranking AKQJT987 in each suit. The aim

is to play out al one’s cards. The last player left with cards in hand

is the loser.

Play Eldest starts by playing any card face up to the table to start a

wastepile. Each in turn thereafter may, if possible, play two cards to