A trick-avoidance game | |
Origin | United States |
---|---|
Alternative names | American hearts, black lady hearts, black Maria, black widow, slippery Anne, rickety Kate |
Type | Trick-avoidance |
Players | 3–6 (4 best) |
Skills | Card counting, tactics |
Cards | 52 cards (4 players) |
Deck | French |
Rank (high→low) | A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 |
Play | Clockwise |
Playing time | 10 minutes per hand |
Chance | Low–moderate |
Related games | |
Hearts • Black Maria | |
Aim: avoid capturing hearts or the ♠Q |
Black lady is an American card game of the hearts group for three to six players and the most popular of the group. It emerged in the early 20th century as an elaboration of hearts and was initially also called discard hearts. It is named after its highest penalty card, the queen of spades or "black lady". It is a trick-avoidance game in which the aim is to avoid taking tricks containing hearts or the black lady. American author and leading bridge exponent, Ely Culbertson, describes it as "essentially hearts with the addition of the queen of spades as a minus card, counting thirteen" and goes on to say that "black lady and its elaborations have completely overshadowed the original hearts in popularity". [1]
The game is often called hearts in America, although that is the proper name for the basic game in which only the cards of the heart suit incur penalty points. It is known by a variety of other names including American hearts, [2] black lady hearts, [3] black widow [4] and slippery Anne. [1] In Australia it is known as rickety Kate. [5] It is sometimes misnamed black Maria which, however, is the British variant of hearts played with additional penalty cards.
Black lady was developed in America in the early 20th century from hearts. It is first mentioned by R. F. Foster in 1909 who describes a variant called "Discard hearts which is sometimes called black jack or black lady". In black jack, the jack of spades was worth "ten hearts"; in black lady the queen of spades was worth "thirteen hearts". Discarding three cards was already part of the game as the name discard hearts suggests. The discards were passed to the left. Scoring was simple: one penalty point for every heart captured and thirteen for the queen of spades. [6]
The slam known as "shooting the moon" first appeared in Britain in 1939 in a variant of hearts called hitting the moon. This was essentially black lady with the addition of a slam. Today this feature is a common element in the game. [7]
Black lady was incorporated into Microsoft Windows under the name "Microsoft Hearts", starting with Windows 3.1.
The aim of black lady is to avoid capturing heart cards or the queen of spades.
The following rules are based on the earliest known rules – those by R.F. Foster (1909) – in which black lady was an alternative name for discard hearts, itself a variation of classic hearts. [8]
The game is designed for three to six players, although "four is the usual number." A standard 52-card deck of Anglo-American pattern cards is used in which cards rank in their normal order, aces high. If three play, the is removed, if five play, the two black deuces are removed and, if six play, all four deuces are discarded. It was usual practice to play with two decks, one being shuffled while the other was being dealt. Players cut for the choice of seats (aces low), lowest becoming the first dealer and choosing a seat first and then others choosing their seats in their order. Players tying must cut again. [8]
Any player has a right to shuffle, the dealer last. Dealer offers the cards to pone (to the right) for cutting, before dealing all the cards, clockwise and one at a time, to each player starting with eldest hand (to the left). The deal always rotates to the left. After the deal, each player discards three cards to the left-hand neighbour. Players may not view the cards they receive before selecting their discards. [8]
The aim is to avoid taking any hearts or the black lady (tricks. Eldest hand leads any card to the first trick. Players must follow suit if they can; otherwise may discard. There is no trump suit. The winner of a trick leads to the next. [8]
) in theFoster's scoring scheme for basic hearts is that players start with a fixed number of counters (50 or 100) and pay one counter into the pool for each heart captured; the Black Lady being worth thirteen. The pool is claimed by the person or people winning it. There are two ways of deciding a winner. In the sweepstake method, the pool may only be claimed by a player or players who takes no hearts at all. If everyone takes at least one, the pool stays and forms a 'jack' (hence 'jackpot') until someone eventually takes no hearts at the end of a deal. If more than one player takes no hearts, they divide the pool, any odd counters staying put. In the 'Howell' method, at the end of each deal, players pay into the pool per opponent as many counters as they took hearts. So in a four-player game, if Andy takes the Black Lady and a heart i.e. 14 hearts, he pays 3 × 14 = 42 counters into the pool. Once everyone had paid up, players claim as many counters as they did not hold at the end (26 minus the number of penalty points scored). So Andy may claim 26 − 14 = 12 counters. This exhausts the pool and is designed to be a fairer reflection of the players' ability. [8] The Black Lady ranks as a spade within the spade suit and so may be discarded if any other suit is played.
The following rules are based on those by American bridge expert, Ely Culbertson, where it is described as a separate game that is "essentially Hearts with the addition of the queen of spades as a minus card, counting thirteen". However, he omitted to mention that it also differed in retaining the discard or passing feature of Black Lady/Discard Hearts. The main change from the earliest rules is a much simplified scoring system. Culbertson includes a slam, first introduced by Phillips in 1939, but this time no points are scored for it. [1] [a]
According to Culbertson, black lady may be played by three to seven players, individually, the best number being four. The standard 52-card deck is used and, in order to ensure each player gets the same number of cards, twos are discarded in the order: [1]
, , and . Aces are high. Again, players may pass any three cards face down and to the left. As an alternative rule, however, players may pass cards alternately to the left and then right from deal to deal.Eldest hand leads to the first trick with any card. Players must follow suit if they can; otherwise may discard any card. A trick is won by the highest card of the led suit and the winner of the trick leads to the next. [1]
When all the tricks are played, players total up their scores. Each heart card captured scores one penalty point and the black lady scores thirteen. If one player takes all the penalty cards, no scores are recorded for that deal. When the first player reaches 100 points, the game ends and the winner is the player with the lowest score. [1]
Glenn and Denton (2003) state that this version "is nearly universal in the United States." These rules are based on Morehead (2001), except where stated. The major differences are the rules on passing and the scoring scheme for shooting the moon which reflects the earliest rule by Phillips. [2] [9] [7]
Three to six may play, but the game is best for four. There are no partnerships and no trumps. The standard deck is used and an even distribution of cards is achieved by removing as many of the following as are needed: [b] [9]
, , and . Cards rank in the normal order with Aces high. Alternative rule: any cards left over after the deal are put into a kitty and the winner of the first trick adds them to his or her tricks. Some rules allow the winner of the first trick to view the kitty as well.Players cut for the deal, the player drawing the lowest card becoming the first dealer. [2] Cards are dealt clockwise beginning with eldest hand. After the deal each player selects three cards to discard and passes them to the left-hand neighbour. This must be done before viewing the cards received from the right. [9] Alternative rule: In the American version of this game, called American Hearts by Glenn and Denton, the cards are passed differently in successive deals. For the first deal, cards are passed to the left. For the second deal, cards are passed to the right. In the third deal, cards are passed across the table and in the fourth deal, players 'hold' i.e. do not pass any cards. [2]
Card play follows the normal rules: eldest hand leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if able; otherwise, they may play a card from any suit. The highest card of the led suit wins the trick, and the trick winner leads to the next. Alternative rules: The player holding the [9]
leads with that card. Some rules state that neither hearts nor the Black Lady may be led until the first heart has been discarded. According to Morehead, in club play, the player with the may be required to play it at the first opportunity by discarding or following a higher spade.An innovation in modern black lady is the take-all or shooting the moon, whereby a player may aim to capture all the penalty cards; i.e., the black lady and all hearts. In this event the player scores zero, while each opponent scores twenty-six penalty points. In a failed attempt, penalty points are scored as normal. [2] Morehead gives the old scoring rule that no players score for the deal and the other alternative that the player who successfully shoots the moon scores twenty-six plus points. [9]
Apart from shooting the moon, the usual scoring system is employed with players scoring one penalty point for each heart card taken and thirteen for taking the Black Lady. [2] Game is 100 points. When the first player reaches this score, the game stops and players settle their scores. [9]
Unlike the basic game of hearts, card passing has always been a feature of black lady. It is also referred to as discarding, hence the earliest alternative name for black lady was discard hearts. The idea is that, before each hand begins, each player chooses three cards and passes them to another player. Cards are usually passed to the left, unlike the British game of Black Maria, where cards are passed to the right. Passing cards to the left is easier because you know something about the hand of the player who follows you whereas, in passing cards to the right, you have no information about the hand of the player to your left.
In the earliest rules, passing was always to the left. Today, there are many variations of passing:
Some versions prohibit passing some combination of
, or .There are some common variants to this play:
Shooting the moon is a very common scoring variation. If one player takes all the penalty cards on one deal, that player's score remains unchanged while 26 penalty points are added to the scores of each of the other players. This is known as playing by "old moon" rules. In the "new moon" rules, the player subtracts 26 points from their own score instead of adding 26 to the others.
There are several sub-variations to these rules:
A player who takes no tricks scores –5 penalty points.
A player that achieves a score of exactly 100 has their score reduced to zero. In this variant a score of 101 or greater is required to end the game.
The main variants of black lady are cancellation hearts, omnibus hearts and pink lady.
Cancellation hearts is first described in 1950 by Culbertson and is a variant designed for larger numbers of players, typically 6 to 11 players, using two decks shuffled together. If exactly the same card is played twice in one trick, the cards cancel each other out, and neither can take the trick. If two such pairs appear in the same trick, the whole trick is cancelled and the cards are rolled over to the winner of the next trick. [16]
In 1950, Culbertson reported that omnibus hearts was "rapidly becoming the most popular of hearts games" and was so called because it included all the features found in different members of the hearts family and Arnold states that it is "sufficiently different and popular" to justify being described as a separate game." [17] In effect, omnibus hearts is really a variant of black lady to which has been added the bonus card of the which earns 10 plus points for the player who takes it in a trick. If a player takes all fifteen counters ( , and thirteen hearts), 26 plus points are scored for the deal and the rest score zero (noting that in Culbertson's black lady rules, what is now called shooting the moon results in no player scoring for that deal). [18] Arnold (2011) states that omnibus hearts is considered the best version of hearts by many players. He refers to the capture of all counting cards as "hitting the moon, take-all or slam". The game ends when a player reaches or exceeds 100 penalty points, whereupon the player with the lowest score wins. [19]
Pink lady is an "almost forgotten variant" [20] that "doubles the fun of black lady", [13] "adding interest and intensity." [20] Its key feature is the addition of an extra high penalty card, the or pink lady, which scores 13 penalty points like her counterpart, the . There are now 38 penalty points to be avoided per deal. The presence of the pink lady makes the and as dangerous as their spade counterparts and forms a counter to the black lady, enabling a player saddled with one 'lady' the opportunity to even the score by offloading the other. [20] Spadaccini, like Gibson, recommends playing to 100 points. [13]
Black jack is recorded by Foster as early as 1909 and has appeared sporadically in the literature since. [c] The takes the place of the black lady but is worth 10 hearts or penalty points instead of thirteen. [8] Moss (1995) calls it black jack hearts. [21] In early rules, the black jack may be discarded if its holder is void in the suit led. [22] In later rules, the black jack must be discarded before any other card if the player is void in the led suit. [23]
With the exception of trying to shoot the moon, players attempt to discard high cards, especially high hearts or spades, and try to avoid winning points. This can either be accomplished by creating a void or playing a high card last in a trick that has no points. Generally speaking, it is advantageous to play the highest card possible without winning the trick. Players particularly concentrate on getting rid of high cards in suits that they do not have padding low cards in. For example, if a player had the would not be much of an issue; they can play the four lower cards and hopefully exhaust another player's spades before being forced to play the . In contrast, if they only had , then they would be forced to play the the first time spades were led, with the risk that another player will respond with .
The main objectives of passing are to try to become "short" or "void" in a suit, and thus able to play off-suit when that suit is led; or to rid one's hand of "dangerous" cards that could force a player to take a trick containing penalty points, such as the ace, king, or queen of any suit (especially spades and hearts).
and are two of the most important cards to get rid of, because they are not worth any points themselves but are ranked higher than and as such would force players to take the queen if are lead. In addition, high hearts can leave the player defenseless once hearts are broken. When creating voids, it is best to do that in either clubs or diamonds, because players want to avoid receiving high hearts or spades without having any padding. For this reason, spades lower than the queen are typically not passed unless the player is attempting to shoot the moon. Care must be taken in passing too many high cards which could allow the player receiving the cards to shoot the moon. A simple passing strategy to keep a recipient from shooting the moon is to pass them a single low-value heart, this is especially effective when holding on to the , because when a player has at least one heart it is impossible to shoot the moon without it. As such, it is often wise not to pass the at all.A void is when a player does not have any cards of a certain suit. Generally, this is a highly advantageous situation, because it prevents the player from winning any points in that suit, and provides a means to dispose of poor cards. These can be intentionally created with good passing strategy, or appear by themselves.
If a player does not have combat action of creating smoke in a closed area so that any enemy combatants hiding there would be forced to come out into the open (the is forced to be played by its bearer, thus causing the 's points to be taken by that bearer, and thus evaded by the player actuating the smoking). A player who has or but not , and with a large number of other spades, may feel insulated from being forced to play or in any subsequent smoking play, and thus could also participate in smoking. Even the player that has the , provided he or she similarly has a lot of other spades may decide to "smoke himself" to empty all the other players of their spades, thus ironically insulating himself from being smoked in the future – or perhaps to get the game into the situation in which another player(s) has a "dry" (i.e., solitary) spade that is or , in which case a trick could be started with in the full knowledge that some other player has this dry or and will be forced to play it, taking the 's points.
, , or , it is to that player's advantage to lead spades to try to force onto another player. This is also referred to as "smoking the lady/queen", in reference to theAttempting to shoot the moon is often a risky strategy, as failure to capture every single penalty card will result in the remaining penalty points (as many as 25, if only one heart is missed) being added to one's score. Shooting the moon can rapidly change the direction of a game in a player's favour. A good hand for shooting the moon should contain significant high cards, in addition to a long run of a single suit that can be used to keep the lead once the other players have run out of that suit. Furthermore, it is necessary to either have no hearts, or most/all high hearts (
, , , ), as shooting the moon requires a player to win every trick they lead with hearts. Even with , and a moon attempt will invariably fail, because savvy players will not discard the before multiple people have scored at least one point, so the will ensure them at least one trick containing points.Because black lady is generally understood to have only one winner when the game ends, some of the general strategies change when one or more players are at risk of reaching 100 points. In such scenarios it becomes strategical for players to work together to ensure the
goes to the lowest score player, in order to close the gap before the game ends. Similarly, when a player is at 87 points or more and receives the , everyone but the lowest score player can assist that player in shooting the moon (as long as the new moon rule is in play) so that the game does not end immediately, giving everyone a chance to catch up.Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions of people play bridge worldwide in clubs, tournaments, online and with friends at home, making it one of the world's most popular card games, particularly among seniors. The World Bridge Federation (WBF) is the governing body for international competitive bridge, with numerous other bodies governing it at the regional level.
Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although most variations can accommodate between three and six players. It was first recorded in the United States in the 1880s and has many variants, some of which are also referred to as "Hearts", especially the games of Black Lady and Black Maria. The game is a member of the Whist group of trick-taking games, but is unusual among Whist variants in that it is a trick-avoidance game; players avoid winning certain penalty cards in tricks, usually by avoiding winning tricks altogether. The original game of Hearts is still current, but has been overtaken in popularity by Black Lady in the United States and Black Maria in Great Britain.
A trick-taking game is a card- or tile-based game in which play of a hand centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called tricks, which are each evaluated to determine a winner or taker of that trick. The object of such games then may be closely tied to the number of tricks taken, as in plain-trick games such as contract bridge, whist, and spades, or to the value of the cards contained in taken tricks, as in point-trick games such as pinochle, the tarot family, briscola, and most evasion games like hearts.
500 or Five Hundred is a trick-taking game developed in the United States from Euchre. Euchre was extended to a 10 card game with bidding and a Misère contract similar to Russian Preference, producing a cutthroat three-player game like Preference and a four-player game played in partnerships like Whist which is the most popular modern form, although with special packs it can be played by up to six players.
The simple squeeze is the most basic form of a squeeze in contract bridge. When declarer plays a winner in one suit, an opponent is forced to discard a stopper in one of declarer's two threat suits.
Skat, historically Scat, is a three-player trick-taking card game of the ace–ten family, devised around 1810 in Altenburg in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. It is the national game of Germany and, along with Doppelkopf, it is the most popular card game in Germany and Silesia and one of the most popular in the rest of Poland. A variant of 19th-century Skat was once popular in the US. John McLeod considers it one of the best and most interesting card games for three players, and Kelbet described it as "the king of German card games." The German Skat Association assess that it is played by around 25 million Germans – more than play football.
Spades is a trick-taking card game devised in the United States in the 1930s. It can be played as either a partnership or solo/"cutthroat" game. The object is to take the number of tricks that were bid before play of the hand began. Spades is a descendant of the whist family of card games, which also includes bridge, hearts, and oh hell. Its major difference as compared to other whist variants is that, instead of trump being decided by the highest bidder or at random, the spade suit always trumps, hence the name.
Rubber bridge is a form of contract bridge played by two competing pairs using a particular method of scoring. A rubber is completed when one pair becomes first to win two games, each game presenting a score of 100 or more contract points; a new game ensues until one pair has won two games to conclude the rubber. Owing to the availability of various additional bonus and penalty points in the scoring, it is possible, though less common, to win the rubber by amassing more total points despite losing two games out of three. Rubber bridge involves a high degree of skill but there is also a fair amount of luck involved in who gets the best cards. A popular variation of rubber bridge is known as Chicago.
Rummy is a group of games related by the feature of matching cards of the same rank or sequence and same suit. The basic goal in any form of rummy is to build melds which can be either sets or runs and either be first to go out or to amass more points than the opposition.
Sheng ji is a family of point-based, trick-taking card games played in China and in Chinese immigrant communities. They have a dynamic trump, i.e., which cards are trump changes every round. As these games are played over a wide area with no standardization, rules vary widely from region to region.
Tiến lên is a shedding-type card game originating in Vietnam. It may be considered Vietnam's national card game, and is common in communities where Vietnamese migration has occoured. It is also played in the United States, sometimes under the names Viet Cong, VC, Thirteen, Killer, or 2’s.
Preempt is a bid in contract bridge whose primary objectives are (1) to thwart opponents' ability to bid to their best contract, with some safety, and (2) to fully describe one's hand to one's partner in a single bid. A preemptive bid is usually made by jumping, i.e. skipping one or more bidding levels. Since it deprives the opponents of the bidding space, it is expected that they will either find a wrong contract of their own, or fail to find any. A preemptive bid often has the aim of a save, where a partnership bids a contract knowing it cannot be made, but assumes that, the penalty will still be smaller than the value of opponents' bid and made contract.
These terms are used in contract bridge, using duplicate or rubber scoring. Some of them are also used in whist, bid whist, the obsolete game auction bridge, and other trick-taking games. This glossary supplements the Glossary of card game terms.
Liverpool rummy is a multi-player, multi-round card game similar to other variants of rummy that adds features like buying and going out. It is played the same as Contract rummy, except that if a player manages to cut the exact number of cards required to deal the hand and leave a face-up card, then the cutting player's score is reduced by 50 points.
Switch is a shedding-type card game for two or more players that is popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland and as alternative incarnations in other regions. The sole aim of Switch is to discard all of the cards in one's hand; the first player to play their final card, and ergo have no cards left, wins the game. Switch is very similar to the games Crazy Eights, UNO, Flaps, Mau Mau or Whot! belonging to the Shedding family of card games.
Two-ten-jack is a Japanese trick-taking card game for two players that takes its name from the three highest-scoring cards in the game: the 2, 10 and Jack in three different suits.
Konter a Matt, Kontra a Matt or Konter a Midd is a Luxembourgish trick-taking card game played by four players. The game is popular enough to have been televised on RTL, Luxembourg's leading TV station and for tournaments to be organised. Konter a Matt is one of a family of similar games, known as the Couillon Group, played in the Benelux area. Other games in the family include the Belgian game of Couillon, known as Kwajongen in Flemish areas and Kujong in Luxembourg, the Dutch game of Troeven and the Belgian games of Brûte and Gamelle.
Gong Zhu (拱猪) is a Chinese four-player trick-taking card game that is similar to Black Lady, the leading member of the Hearts family. However, it differs in that it assigns quite different point values to cards. The objective of the game is to score positive points and avoid penalty points. Gong Zhu means: Push Out the Pig, for "pig" is the name given to the Q♠.
Maw, formerly also mawe, was a Scottish card game for two players, popularised by James I, which is ancestral to the Irish national game of Twenty-five as well as the Canadian game of Forty-fives. Maw appears to be the same as five cards, a game described by Charles Cotton in the 17th century. The game disappeared from the literature after the period of the English Commonwealth, only to emerge in Ireland in the 19th century in new forms for two or more players and known as five and ten, spoil five and forty-five. These new variants are still played today, the latter has evolved into the Canadian game of forty-fives.
Black Maria is a popular British card game of the Hearts group for three to six players. It is an elaboration of Black Lady, itself a development of the original American game of Hearts, the progenitor of the group. Black Maria is regarded as one of the best games for three players.