A game I've never Heard of Outside Quebec, Canada
Eldritch Aes Sedai
I'd like to know if anyone has heard of this game, and what the English
name would be.
in French, its called Au Roi (loosely translated, Playing with the
Kings, or just The Kings)
53 cards (standard deck with 1 joker added)
4 people in East/West North/South partnership.
It is a bidding game, with 50 being the minimum and 100 points as the
maximum you can bid.
You make points by taking tricks, with certain cards of the declared
suit having points.
The suit runs Ace High to Joker low.
The cards are dealt 9 to each person starting with the dealers left for
the initial bidding round.
Bidding starts with to the dealer's left ending with the dealer.
Partners must not tabletalk.
4 cards are dealt to each person except the winning bidder who gets 5
cards, the dealer starting with him/herself first.
Winning bidder then declares the trump suit and each player makes
him/herself a hand of 6 cards out of as many of the trump suit as s/he
can. if the winning bidder has more than 6 cards s/he must pass them to
his/her partner. If any other player has more than 6 cards they are set
aside. No point cards may be set aside this way. If a player has less
than six cards he uses the other suits to fill in in any way desired.
Generally if the bidder bids red, s/he keeps the other red suit and
his/her partner keeps black, and vice versa to give the partner the
flexibility to take the lead or leave it as needed.
The idea is to get as many of the point cards as possible. If you fail
to get the number of points you bid, you lose the amount you bid from
your total score.
Winning score is 200.
Cards are scored as follows:
A - 1 pt
K - 30 pts
Q - 0 pts
J - 1 pt
10 - 3 pts
9 - 9 pts
8 - 0 pts
7 - 0 pts
6 - 0 pts
5 - 5 pts
4 - 0 pts
3 - 0 pts
2 - 1 pt
Joker - 50 pts
There are special bids and situations - one may "ateil" (thats the
french word we use, literally meaning "To harness (the horse)") which
cannot be used as the first bid. If the dealer chooses this bid, it is
indesputable. If another does, the dealer may choose to overbid with
another "ateil". In this situation the second round of dealing is
skipped, and the parter of the winning bid does not play. (Similar to
going alone in euchre). The winner of the bid must make all points, NOT
TRICKS. frex: If a trick contains the queen the three and the eight of
trump, and the opposition takes it, the deal continues. If it were to
contain the two, the bidder would lose. The game ends when there are no
more point cards to play.
Another Bid is the "partie blanche" (The White Deal) in which the
winning bidder has no face cards. This bid is only worth 100 points, not
the game and can be outbid by the dealer with an "ateil" bid. The person
shows his hand to verify lack of face cards and then the cards are dealt
as with a regular winning bidder. When the dealer gets to the bidder
thatn called White, he turns the cards face up. If there is any face
cards in his 5 additional cards, s/he must try to win the deal by
getting all the point cards, this time with help of partner. In this
instance only, Partner may suggest suit. If there are no face cards,
bidder scores 100 points and deal passes to the left.
The final special deal is the "Jeu en Petit" or "the Small Game". This
is another win or lose bid, again, an "ateil" bid by the dealer takes
precedence, wherein the winning bidder CANNOT make any points, and in
this one situation, ace is lower than deuce but still higher than
joker. Bidder plays without partner.
If on the first round of 9 cards dealt, any player ends up with all four
Kings in hand, they automatically win the game.
There are different variations on Partie Blance and Jeu en Petit, such
as Jeu en Petit switching the ranks of the cards so taht Deuce is high
and Ace low, or Partie Blanche where it is worth the whole game.
If anyone has ever played this game, heard of this game, heard of a
Similar Game (not hearts or spades or euchre, those i know...) Please
email me or respond to this group.
THANKS!!!!
Derrick Coyne
Jake Patterson
> Hi everyone.
<snip>
Your game sounds somewhat similar to a game played in Vermont, called Double
King Pede. Like your game, in DKP, The deck consists of 53 cards (one joker)
and is played with two teams of two players each. Unlike your procedure,
Twelve cards are delt to each player, and the remaining five cards are placed
in the center of the table (face down) and form the kitty.
Bidding then occurs, and can range from 1 to 100 points. The winning bidder
gets the kitty and then declares the trump suit. The objective is to win via
tricks enough points to cover your bid.
Here is the list of cards/values, from ace (most powerfull) to joker (least
powerfull):
trump ace: 1 point
trump king: 25 points
other king: 25 points for example, if trump is spades, other is clubs.
trump queen:
trump jack: 1 point
trump ten: 1 point
trump nine: 9 points
other nine: 9 points
trump eight:
trump seven:
trump six:
trump five: 5 points
other five: 5 points
trump four:
trump three:
trump two: 1 point
joker: 18 points
Play usually goes to 500 points, there is only one special bid and that is
"Shoot the Moon" which is similar to your first special bid, except that
it does not immediately win the game if successfull, it merely scores 200
points.
Both of these games seem to be related to a family of games decended from
a game called Pedro, more info can be found here:
http://www.pagat.com/allfours/pedro.html
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.....................................GCE Vectrex - Entertaining New Ideas
John McLeod
<dco...@voyager.net>> wrote:
>I'd like to know if anyone has heard of this game, and what the English
>name would be.
>in French, its called Au Roi (loosely translated, Playing with the
>Kings, or just The Kings)
>If anyone has ever played this game, heard of this game, heard of a
>Similar Game (not hearts or spades or euchre, those i know...) Please
>email me or respond to this group.
I have not heard of it, and it is not listed (as far as I can see) in
Richard Raymond's 'Regles des Jeux de Cartes' (Editions Quebecor, 1993),
which is the only French Canadian card game book I know of (in fact it
seems to be the only book about Canadian card games in any language).
However, your game is quite closely related to 83, a variation of Pedro,
which is described towards the bottom of the Pedro page of my web site
(http://www.pagat.com/allfours/pedro.html). As far as I can tell, 83 is
played only in Maine, USA, and it is perhaps no coincidence that this is
geographically so close to Quebec. The actual scores for the trumps are
different, and 83 lacks the special bids 'ateil', 'partie blanche' and
'jeu en petit', but the basic structure of the game is very similar.
On the same web page you will find a short description of Canadian King
Pedro, said to be played by Ukrainians in Canada, which also has a
family resemblance to your game - it even has the right point value for
the king, and as in your game, the name of the game refers to the king.
I hope this helps.
--
John McLeod For information on card games visit
jo...@pagat.demon.co.uk http://www.pagat.com/
Steve Tunks
Eldritch Aes Sedai
english speaking area :)
thanks!!
derrick