Blackout card game scoring

Only if you have no cards of the suit led and no trumps can you discard from a different non-trump suit. Although this is rule is uncommon in English speaking countries, it is actually the usual way of playing La Podrida the Spanish equivalent to Oh Hell played in Latin America and in Spain as well as the equivalent Romanian game of Whist.

Mark Brader suggests a variation in which two jokers are included, to make a card deck. These jokers are a suit of their own containing just two equal cards. If a joker is led it wins the trick unless trumped. If a joker is turned up the other joker is the only trump. Dick Atkinson reports a version of Blackout for 5 or 6 players, played in Northeast England in the s. Two jokers are added to the pack, and if there are 5 players the four deuces are removed leaving 50 cards. With 5 players the deal is always 10 cards each and with 6 players 9 cards each.

The trump suit rotates from deal to deal in the order hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades. The dealer could not make the bid total equal the number of cards dealt. Jokers could not be led unless the player had no other cards and could not be played in the first trick. Apart from that, a joker could be played to any trick even if the player could have followed suit. The first player of a joker could nominate it as either "high", automatically winning the trick or "low", automatically losing.

The player of the second joker had no choice: it would be low if the first joker was high and high if the first was low. If a player was forced to lead a joker, the first suited card played determined the suit of the trick. A version of Oh Hell! In the variation offered there:. Andi Beben describes the four-player variant 7-truf played in Indonesia with a card pack ranking from high to low A-K-Q-J in each suit.

There are 22 deals as follows:. Players bid in turn. The dealer's bid cannot make the total bids equal to the total number of tricks. For a successful bid, the score is 10 times the bid, or 5 times the total number of tricks played for a successful zero bid. Unsuccessful players score 1 point per trick won. There is no hook rule. A bid made exactly scores 10 points plus the bid: a missed bid over or under scores 0. La Podrida is the equivalent Spanish game to Oh Hell! There is also a similar game La Pocha , played with the card Spanish deck.

Romanian Whist is a variation of Oh Hell! David Parlett's card game Ninety-Nine is based on similar principles, but with an extra twist to the bidding. Nominations or Clag is a British variant which adds some extra deals with special rules.

You can download a freeware Oh Hell! Jack Marrows has written a two-player Oh Shit! His version has the unusual feature that the jack of trumps is highest, followed by the other jack of the same colour, as in Euchre or Alex Quarmby has written a Contract Whist Oh Hell app for Android , with which you can play against up to 5 computer opponents. The version of Oh Hell! Oh Hell! Board Game Arena offers an online Oh Hell game.

Funnode has an online version of Oh Hell! Players and Cards From 3 to 7 people can play. The game is best when played with 4 to 6. Sequence of Hands The game consists of a series of hands. However, if the suit led was not trump, and one or more players played a trump card, then the trick is won by the player who played the highest rank of trump.

When a trick is won, the winning player sets the trick in front of himself so that it's easy to tell how many tricks each player has won. One player serves as the scorekeeper. As each player makes his bid, the scorekeeper writes them down. All information about the bids is open, and any player can ask for a reminder of who bid what at any time during the game. Players only score points by precisely predicting the number of hands they would win. A bid that's either too high or too low scores zero points.

Each player who makes his bid exactly scores 10 points plus the number of tricks won. For example, Evelyn bid four and won four tricks.

Frank bid zero and won zero tricks. The player with the highest total score at the end of the game is the winner. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. There is no requirement for each bid to be higher than the previous one. Turn to play starts left of the dealer and passes clockwise. Players must follow the suit of the card that led if possible.

If unable to follow suit, they may play any card. The trick is won by the highest trump played, or, if no trumps were played, by the highest card of the suit that led that trick. The winner of a trick leads to the next.

Trumps can lead at any time and need not be 'broken' first. If not, they score and lose no points that hand. A player must play a card of the suit led to the trick if they contain any cards of the suit led. If they do not have any cards of this suit, they may play any card to the trick, including a card of the trump suit. The player playing the highest trump card to the suit wins the trick. If no trump cards were played to the trick, the player who played the highest card of the suit led wins the trick.

The winner of each trick leads the first card to the next trick. The players continue playing tricks on the deal until all the players cards have been played. When playing the last deal of each game, the hand is played at no trump, thus no card is turned and only the highest card of the suit led will win these tricks.

Scoring The object of each deal is to win exactly the number of tricks bid. If the player wins more or less tricks than what they bid, they gain no score for that deal. If they do manage to score the exact number bid, they score 5 points plus the number of cards dealt to each player in that deal.

After all the deals for that game have been played, the winner is the player with the highest total score. If there are two players tied for the highest score, additional hands are again played starting over with the one card hand and building up by one card per deal until, at the end of a hand there is only one player with the highest score.

All players may continue to play in these additional hands, and, in some cases may even defeat the tied players. Alternate Scoring : There are various scoring schemes for Blackout in addition to the one given above.

One common alternative scoring method is to award each successful bid 10 points plus the amount of their bid. As in the standard game, the player must still win the exact number of tricks bid in order to earn this score.

Simultaneous Bidding : In order to help prevent a player from influencing his bid based on what previous players may have bid, an optional rule that is sometimes used is that of simultaneous bidding. In this variant, all players submit their bids at the same time.

To do this, each player places his two hands, in a fist on the table. At a signal from the dealer, each player then immediately displays a number of fingers equal to his bid. These bids should then be recorded by one player usually the dealer for scoring at the end of the hand. Reverse Deals : In this variation, the individual deals are played in reverse order. Thus, for the first deal, the maximum number of cards are dealt, and on each subsequent hand one less card is dealt until the last deal, which is the one card hand.

The first, maximum card hand is played at no trump while the other deals use the standard turn-up card for determining the trump suit, as described above. In all other respects the game is played identically to the standard game. Full Rotation : This variation is the same as the standard game, except for there are additional deals in each game.

After the hand with the maximum deals is dealt, the next deal would consist of one less card and so on for each deal back down to the one card deal which is the last in the game. Hook Rule : In this version, a player may not bid such that the TOTAL number of tricks bid so far by all players combined in this deal totals exactly the same as the number of tricks in the game. Thus, a player on his turn may not make a bid which would cause this total of all the bids to be over the possible total for the hand.

This forces each hand to be either over or under bid. Oftentimes, this may cause the dealer the last bidder to make a bid in which they would not normally want to make.

In this version the deal rotates clockwise around the table to the next player after each completed deal. Cooperative Blackout : Cooperative or Co-Op Blackout is a unique variant of blackout, being one of a very few card games using a standard deck which feature completely cooperative gameplay. Thus, in this version of the game, every player plays towards the same common goal. All the players will either all win together or all lose together.

Similar to the standard, competitive version, this variant can be played by 2 to 7 players. The game uses one standard deck, however a second, shuffled deck is used to determine the trump suit for each hand. As in the standard game, on each round the player's will receive a different number of cards, based on the current round.

After the cards are dealt on each round, a card from the second deck is exposed, the suit of this card being set as the trump suit for the hand. This card and all other cards from the second deck play no further part in the game. After the trump suit is exposed, a round of bidding begins, starting with the player to the dealer's immediate left.

Each player has exactly one opportunity to bid and may not pass. A player makes a bid based on exactly how many tricks he expects to win this hand. A player may make a bid of 0 if he expects to win no tricks during the hand. The total summation of all the bids must equal exactly the number of cards dealt to each player during the hand. Thus the players may have some general discussion before the round of bidding. However, the players may never reveal the exact nature of their hand, such as specific suits or numbers, they may make statements regarding the general strengths of the hand i.

Once all the bids have been made, play begins with the player to the immediate left of the dealer leading the first card to the first trick. Each other player, in a clockwise direction around the table then plays one card from his own hand to the trick. If he has a card of the suit originally led to the trick, he must play a card of that suit.

If he has no cards of that suit, he may play any card from his hand, including a card from the trump suit. The highest card of the trump suit played to the trick wins the trick if it contains any. If no cards of the trump suit were played to the trick, the highest card of the suit originally led to the trick wins it. After all tricks have been played and won, the won tricks by the players are compared to their bids for the hand.