King

Turkey’s twenty-hand classic. Choose your hands: dodge tricks, hearts, kings and jacks, queens, the last two and the K♥, or name trumps and take +50 a trick. 4 players.

Who To Play With

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How to play King

  1. 1Four players, 13 cards each, aces high, and 20 hands. Each hand one player, starting with a random one and moving left, looks at their cards and chooses the contract for that hand, then leads the first trick.
  2. 2Over the game every player chooses Trumps twice and a penalty contract three times. Each penalty contract can be chosen at most twice in the whole game, by anyone, so the choices left shrink as the game goes on.
  3. 3Follow suit if you can; the highest card of the suit led wins the trick, and the winner leads next.
  4. 4No Tricks: −50 for every trick you take. No Kings or Jacks: −60 for each king or jack you take. No Queens: −100 for each queen you take. Last Two: −180 for each of the last two tricks.
  5. 5No Hearts: −30 for every heart you take. Nobody may lead a heart until one has been played, unless they hold only hearts, and a player who can’t follow suit must play a heart if they have one.
  6. 6King of Hearts: whoever takes the K♥ loses 320. No heart leads until a heart has been played. Its holder must play it as soon as they can’t follow suit, or when hearts are led and the A♥ is already in the trick.
  7. 7Trumps: the chooser names a trump suit and every trick is worth +50. Nobody may lead a trump until one has been played, unless they hold only trumps. If you can’t follow suit you must trump, beating any trump already in the trick if you can.
  8. 8A penalty hand stops early once every card that counts has been taken. Penalties and trump points balance out over the game. After 20 hands the highest total wins.

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