500
Bid for the kitty and the joker. First team to 500. 4 players, in partnerships.
Also known as Five Hundred.
How to play 500
- 1Partners sit opposite. The deck is 5 through ace in every suit, the 4s of hearts and diamonds, and one joker. Everyone gets ten cards and three go face down to the kitty.
- 2Bidding goes around the players in turn: name a number of tricks (6–10) and a trump suit or no trump, or pass. Each bid must be worth more than the last; once you pass you are out of the bidding.
- 3Bid values: six spades 40, clubs 60, diamonds 80, hearts 100, no trump 120, and each extra trick adds 100 (ten no trump is 520). If everyone passes, the cards are redealt. We play without misère (no-trick) bids.
- 4The winner picks up the kitty, puts back any three cards, and leads the first trick.
- 5In a suit contract the joker is the highest trump, then the jack of trump (right bower), then the other jack of the same color (left bower), then A, K, Q, 10 and down. Both bowers and the joker count as trumps.
- 6At no trump the joker beats everything, but you may only play it when you can't follow suit (or lead it, naming the suit others must follow).
- 7Follow suit if you can. Making the contract scores its value (all ten tricks score at least 250); failing loses it. Defenders score 10 per trick.
- 8The first team to 500 by making a bid wins. A team that falls to −500 loses.
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