The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (165 page)

draw and go out in the same turn.

End of stock If the stock runs out before anyone goes out, the

End of stock If the stock runs out before anyone goes out, the

players reveal their cards and everyone scores for their best flush.

Score When someone has knocked, al players reveal their hands.

Anyone with five cards of the same suit scores as specified above,

making 51 the highest possible total. The knocker scores double,

provided that no one else has a higher-scoring five-flush, or one of

equal face value but containing fewer Jokers. Anyone who does

have such a bet er hand (or the best of them if more than one

player has) scores the value of his own hand plus that of the

knocker, who deducts the value of his own hand from his current

score.

Game Play up to 1000, or any other agreed target.

Comment I find the above rules unsatisfactory and favour the

fol owing modifications. (1) Jokers belong to any suit but have a

face value of zero. (2) A player with three or four cards of a suit

cannot knock but may, at a showdown, score the face value of the

flush, less the face value of any cards of a dif erent suit. This just

about makes it possible for a player who knocks with a low five-

flush to be beaten, on points, by one with a shorter but higher-

scoring flush.

Conquian (Coon Can)

2 players, 40 cards

The earliest true Rummy, a kind of proto-Gin, was first played in

Mexico and neighbouring states, especial y Texas, from the mid-

nineteenth century. The name is a mystery. Some relate it to

Spanish icon quien?, literal y ‘with whom?’, but the phrase is

total y irrelevant. Like other Rummy names such as Coon Can, Khun

Khan, Khan-hoo, Chin-Chon, and so on, it is probably a corruption

of an oriental game which I have seen recorded as ‘kong-king’.

Preliminaries Deal ten cards each from a 40-card pack ranking

A234567JQK and stack the rest face down. The aim is to be the first

to go out by melding eleven cards, including the last one drawn. A

meld is three or more cards of the same rank or from three to eight

cards in suit and sequence. Because Ace is low and Seven and Jack

consecutive, both A-2-3 and 6-7-J are valid, but Q-K-A is not.

Technically, you can have a sequence of nine or ten cards, but neither is of

any use because you need an eleventh to go out.

Start Non-dealer starts by facing the top card of stock. He may not

take it into hand, but must either meld it immediately (with at least

two hand-cards) or pass. If he melds, he must balance his hand by

making a discard face up. If he passes, dealer must either meld it

himself, leaving a discard face up in its place, or else also pass by

turning it face down. In the lat er event it becomes his turn to draw

from stock.

Play Continue in the same way. Whoever turns from stock has first

choice of the card turned, and must either meld it, extend one of his

existing melds with it, or pass. If both pass, the second turns it

down and draws next. If a player declines a faced card which can

legal y be added to one of his existing melds, he must meld it if his

opponent so demands. In this way, it is sometimes possible to force

a player into a situation from which he can never go out – a point

of considerable strategic interest.

Rearrangement In melding, a player may ‘borrow’ cards from his

other melds to help create new ones, provided that those thereby

depleted are not reduced to less than valid three-card melds. After

melding, the player’s discard becomes available to the opponent,

who may either meld it himself or turn it down and make the next

draw.

Ending Play ceases when one player melds both the faced card and

al cards remaining in his hand, whether by adding to existing

melds, making new ones, or both. If neither is out when the last

available card has been declined, the game is drawn and the stake

carried forward.

Pan (Panguingue)

A multi-player extension of Conquian dating from the early 1900s

and stil widely played in dedicated gaming establishments in the

western United States, especial y California. It is exclusively a

casino game and has too many complications to justify description

here.

Kaluki (Caloochie)

2-6 players, 104 cards

Reportedly most popular in the eastern United States, it is a moot

point whether this double-pack Rummy has a greater variety of

spel ings (Caloochie, Kaloochi, Kaloochie, Kalougie, Kalookie, etc.)

or of rules.

The fol owing are typical.

Preliminaries From a double 52-card pack plus four Jokers deal

fifteen each, or thirteen if five play, or eleven if six. Turn the next

to start the wastepile, and stack the rest face down.

Object To be the first out of cards by laying them down in melds,

and bylayingof individual cardstoexistingmelds (ownorothers’)

and bylayingof individual cardstoexistingmelds (ownorothers’)

whenever they match.

Melds A meld is three or four cards of the same rank, or three or

more cards in suit and sequence. Sequence order is

A23456789TJQKA, Ace counting high or low but not both (K-A-2 is

il egal). A Joker may represent any desired card. No meld may

contain two identical cards (unless previously agreed otherwise), or

simultaneously a Joker and the card it represents.

Play Each in turn draws the top card of either the stock or the

wastepile, makes any possible melds, and makes one discard face

up to the waste pile. You cannot take the upcard until you have

made at least one meld, or can immediately use the upcard to make

one.

The first meld made by each player must comprise cards total ing

at least 51, counting Ace 15, courts 10, numerals at face value, and

Jokers as the cards they represent. You may, however, make a

lower-scoring initial meld, provided that you simultaneously lay of

a card or cards to other melds which bring the total value of cards

played from your hand to 51 or more.

Exchanging Jokers If you hold a natural card which can be

substituted for a Joker lying in a meld of your own or anyone

else’s, you may exchange it for the Joker on your turn to play. If the

Joker is ambiguous, any card that leaves a legal meld wil do. For

example, given 4- 5- 6-

, you could exchange the Joker for

either 3 or 7.

Going out Keep playing til someone goes out by melding, laying

of , or discarding the last card from their hand.

If playing for hard score, whoever goes out receives from each

opponent an agreed stake for each card left in hand. Each Joker

counts as two cards, and al stakes are doubled if the winner went

‘Kaluki’ by going out without having previously made any meld.