Forty-Fives

Five cards each. The 5 of trumps beats everything, the ace of hearts is always trump, and you race to 45. 2–6 players.

Who To Play With

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How to play Forty-Fives

  1. 1Everyone gets 5 cards and the next card is turned face up. Its suit is trump for the hand.
  2. 2The best trumps are the 5, then the jack, then the ace of hearts (always a trump, whatever suit is turned), then the ace of trumps, king and queen. In every suit the king, queen and jack come next from the top. Below them, number cards in red suits run high to low, 10 down to 2 with the red ace last; in black suits they run the other way, ace, 2, 3 and so on with the 10 lowest.
  3. 3If the turned card is an ace, the dealer may take it and throw away a card face down. Otherwise whoever was dealt the ace of trumps may swap any card for the turned card. Taking it is up to them.
  4. 4The player after the dealer leads. When a plain suit is led you may follow suit or play a trump, whichever you like; with neither, play anything. When trump is led you must play a trump if you have one, but the 5, the jack and the ace of hearts may be held back when a lower trump was led. The highest trump wins the trick, otherwise the highest card of the suit led, and the winner leads next.
  5. 5Each trick is worth 5 points, and whoever played the highest trump of the hand scores 5 more. Once anyone has 45 at the end of a hand, the highest score wins; a tie at the top plays another hand.

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