Spoil Five

Ireland’s old pool game. Take three of the five tricks to win the pool, or gang up to spoil the hand for whoever might. 3–8 players.

Also known as Spoil 5.

Hands

Who To Play With

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How to play Spoil Five

  1. 1Play chips only. Everyone starts with 20 chips and puts 1 into the pool before each hand. Everyone 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. 5The first player to take three tricks wins the whole pool, and the hand ends there. If nobody takes three, the hand is spoiled: the pool stays in the middle and grows with the next hand's chips. When you can't win, it pays to help spoil the hand for whoever might.
  6. 6Take the first three tricks and you may stop and take the pool, or go for all five (jinking). Take the last two as well and everyone else pays you 2 chips on top of the pool; lose either and the hand is spoiled.
  7. 7The host chooses how many hands to play (10 unless they pick otherwise). If the pool is still there after the last one, play goes on until someone wins it. Most chips wins.

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