3-5-8, also known as sergeant major for its popularity among members of the Royal Air Force, is a trick-taking card game for 3 players, using a standard 52 card deck. 3-5-8 may be played as a gambling game, and there are many variations with names like "8-5-3" and "9-5-2" played throughout the world. [1]
Three players use a 52-card deck. The object is to win as many tricks as possible, ultimately 12 in a single deal to win the game. When a player wins 12 or more tricks in one hand, they win the game.
Draw cards to determine the first dealer and deal 16 cards to each player, the 4 remaining cards are placed on the table to form a kitty. Dealer names a suit as trump and discards 4 cards from his or her hand before replacing them with the kitty. Some groups allow the dealer to pick up the kitty and add it to his or her hand before discarding any 4 cards of the 20 they now have.
Eldest hand leads any card to the first trick and play moves clockwise with each player following suit, or playing any card if unable to follow suit. Each trick is won by the highest trump, or by the highest card of the suit led if no trump card was played to the trick. The winner of each trick leads to the next.
Each player has a minimum number of tricks called a target. Targets are determined by each player's seat for that hand as follows:
After all 16 tricks have been played, scores and targets are compared and players who won more tricks than their target are up by the number of excess tricks, while players who fell short of their target are down by a number of tricks. If players are gambling, up players receive one stake per excess trick won, paid by down player who will have lost by the same number of tricks.
Deal and targets are passed to the left and the new dealer deals the cards out as before, only now there is an exchange of cards before dealer names trump:
Play and scoring continues as above. As the game proceeds, a players target moves up, i.e., 3, 5 then 8 and back to three and so on.
Any of the following rules may be incorporated in a normal game of 3-5-8:
Two optional rules were created to try to balance the game. These rules were used at Woburn Collegiate Institute in the early 90s.
Played as previously with 3-5-8 hands and a 4 card kitty.
Instead of swapping cards at the end of each round, a running total is kept. Anything over the minimum is a plus score and everything under the minimum is a minus score; 1 point per trick. If the 3-hand player wins 6 tricks then they have scored +3, and if the 5-hand player wins 4 tricks then they have scored -1.
The other change is that each player can only make one call of each type. The calls that the 8-hand player can make are:
In a no trumps call, the trick is won by the highest-ranked card of the suit that was lead. So if
is played first followed by and then , the wins.A miz round is played as a no trumps round, but the aim is to lose tricks and the usual minimum needed to win instead becomes the maximum that may be won without losing points.
If a player wins under their maximum then this is a plus score and if they win over it is a minus score; 1 point per trick. So, if the 3-hand player wins 5 tricks, then the score is -2, if they win 1 trick then the score is +2. The 5-hand player is allowed to win 5 tricks without penalty, so if they have won 4 tricks then they have a score of +1.
The game is played until all three players have played all six calls that can be made.
6-3-8 is a good game for 3 people whose deck is one card short. It is played the same as 5-3-8 except for the following:
A Canadian variant whose rules are the same as in 5-3-8 except for the following:
This variation of a variation plays 9-5-2 with the following changes:
Play is as before with each aiming for 9, 5 and 3 respectively, except:
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. Trick-and-draw games are trick-taking games in which the players can fill up their hands after each trick. In most variants, players are free to play any card into a trick in the first phase of the game, but must follow suit as soon as the stock is depleted. Trick-avoidance games like reversis or polignac are those in which the aim is to avoid taking some or all tricks.
Tarocchini are point trick-taking tarot card games popular in Bologna, capital city of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and has been confined mostly to this area. They are the diminutive form of tarocchi, referring to the reduction of the Bolognese pack from 78 to 62 cards, which probably occurred in the early 16th century.
Euchre or eucre is a trick-taking card game commonly played in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the Midwestern United States. It is played with a deck of 24, 28, or 32 standard playing cards. There are normally four players, two on each team, although there are variations for two to nine players.
Forty-fives is a trick-taking card game that originated in Ireland. The game is popular in many communities throughout Atlantic Canada as well as the Gaspé Coast in Québec. Forty-fives is also played in parts of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire in New England, United States, as well as in the South Island of New Zealand.
Pedro is an American trick-taking card game of the All Fours family based on Auction Pitch. Its most popular variant is known as Cinch, Double Pedro or High Five which was developed in Denver, Colorado around 1885 and soon regarded as the most important American member of the All Fours family. Although it went out of fashion with the rise of Auction Bridge, it is still widely played on the western coast of the United States and in its southern states, being the dominant game in some locations in Louisiana. Forms of the game have been reported from Nicaragua, the Azores, Niobe NY, Italy and Finland. The game is primarily played by four players in fixed partnerships, but can also be played by 2–6 individual players.
Bid whist is a partnership trick-taking variant of the classic card game whist. As indicated by the name, bid whist adds a bidding element to the game that is not present in classic whist. Bid whist, along with spades, remains popular particularly in U.S. military culture and a tradition in African-American culture.
Pitch is the American name of the English trick-taking game of Blind All Fours which, in turn, is derived from classic All Fours. Historically, Pitch started as "Blind All Fours", a very simple All Fours variant that is still played in England as a pub game. The modern game involving a bidding phase and setting back a party's score if the bid is not reached came up in the middle of the 19th century and is more precisely known as Auction Pitch or Setback.
Jass is a family of trick taking, Ace-Ten card games and, in its key forms, a distinctive branch of the Marriage family. It is popular in its native Switzerland as well as the rest of the Alemannic German-speaking area of Europe, Italian South Tyrol and in a few places in Wisconsin, Ohio, California, Oregon and Washington USA.
Cinch, also known as Double Pedro or High Five, is an American trick-taking card game of the All Fours family derived from Auction Pitch via Pedro. Developed in Denver, Colorado in the 1880s, it was soon regarded as the most important member of the All Fours family in the USA, but went out of fashion with the rise of Auction Bridge. The game is primarily played by 4 players in fixed partnerships, but can also be played by 2–6 individual players.
Brisca is a popular Spanish card game played by two teams of two with a 40-card Spanish-suited pack or two teams of three using a 48-card pack.
Smear is a North-American trick-taking card game of the All Fours group, and a variant of Pitch (Setback). Several slightly different versions are played in Michigan, Minnesota, Northern and Central Iowa, Wisconsin and also in Ontario, Canada.
Euchre is a 19th-century trick-taking card game and has many variations.
Manille is a Catalan French trick-taking card game which uses a 32 card deck. It spread to the rest of France in the early 20th century, but was subsequently checked and reversed by the expansion of Belote. It is still popular in France and the western part of Belgium.
The card game of Euchre has many variants, including those for two, three, five or more players. The following is a selection of the Euchre variants found in reliable sources.
The following is a glossary of terms used in card games. Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon slang terms. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific, but apply to a wide range of card games played with non-proprietary packs. It should not include terms solely related to casino or banking games. For glossaries that relate primarily to one game or family of similar games, see Game-specific glossaries.
Court piece is a trick-taking card game similar to the card game whist in which eldest hand makes trumps after the first five cards have been dealt, and trick-play is typically stopped after one party has won seven tricks. A bonus is awarded if one party wins the first seven tricks, or even all tricks. The game is played by four players in two teams, but there are also adaptations for two or three players.
Triomphe, once known as French ruff, is a card game dating from the late 15th century. It most likely originated in France or Spain and later spread to the rest of Europe. When the game arrived in Italy, it shared a similar name with the pre-existing game and deck known as trionfi; probably resulting in the latter becoming renamed as Tarocchi (tarot). While trionfi has a fifth suit that acts as permanent trumps, triomphe randomly selects one of the existing four suits as trumps. Another common feature of this game is the robbing of the stock. Triomphe became so popular that during the 16th century the earlier game of trionfi was gradually renamed tarocchi, tarot, or tarock. This game is the origin of the English word "trump" and is the ancestor of many trick-taking games like Euchre and Whist. The earliest known description of Triomphe was of a point-trick game, perhaps one of the earliest of its type; later, the name was applied to a plain-trick game.
Kratzen is an Austrian card game for three to six players that is played for small stakes usually using a 33-card William Tell pack. It is a member of the Rams group of card games characterised by allowing players to drop out of the current game if they think they will be unable to win any tricks or a minimum number of tricks. The game is related to the Swiss Jass form, Chratze and has been described as "fun" to play.
Sjavs is a Danish card game of the Schafkopf family that is played in two main variants. In Denmark, it is a 3-player game, played with a shortened pack of 20 cards; in the Faroe Islands, where it is very popular, it is a four-hand, partnership game using a standard Piquet pack of 32 cards.
Parlett, David (August 2008). The Penguin Book of Card Games. Penguin. p. 53. ISBN 9780141916101.