The King of Hearts Has Five Sons

[Darin McGrew]

I found a reference to the logic/deduction game "The King of Hearts Has
Five Sons" at The Games Journal, where it is described as a "traditional
American game". It is basically a logic game similar to the boardgame Clue
(Cluedo) that is played with regular playing cards. (Note crossposting.)

I've tried to find out more information about the game (both on the web and
in the library), but have turned up nothing.

Has anyone heard of (or played) this game before? Does anyone know of a
book that describes this game in more detail?

Here is the description of "The King of Hearts Has Five Sons" from
<http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/DeductionGames.shtml>:
| The King of Hearts has 5 Sons. This traditional American game, though
| little known, is perhaps an ancestor of Cluedo. With 4 or 5 players, deal
| out all face cards (12 total) plus the 1-10 of hearts. A Face card and a
| heart are removed and the twenty remaining cards are dealt out. The game
| is then played like Cluedo: Each player chooses one opponent and asks a
| question like "The Queen of Spades had 3 sons": If the player has the
| Queen of Spades or the three of hearts, he must show it secretly to the
| questioner. Players may either take notes, or must play from memory. When
| a player has found the solution, he announces it and looks at the hidden
| cards. If right, he wins, otherwise he is out of the game but remains to
| answer questions.
--
Darin McGrew, mcg...@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da...@htmlhelp.com, http://htmlhelp.com/

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

[bruno faidutti]

In article <a1vjof$9em$1...@samba.rahul.net>, Darin McGrew
<mcg...@stanfordalumni.org> wrote:

> I found a reference to the logic/deduction game "The King of Hearts Has
> Five Sons" at The Games Journal, where it is described as a "traditional
> American game". It is basically a logic game similar to the boardgame
> Clue
> (Cluedo) that is played with regular playing cards. (Note crossposting.)
>
> I've tried to find out more information about the game (both on the web
> and
> in the library), but have turned up nothing.
>
> Has anyone heard of (or played) this game before? Does anyone know of a
> book that describes this game in more detail?
>

I wrote the article... and all I know about this game is that I met some
american guy who told me "I played this in school before WWII, which
means before Clue was invented, and here is how it played....".
Unfortunately, I didn't write down his name, adress and so on.

--
Bruno Faidutti
Games and Unicorns
9 bis rue Alphonse Daudet
30133 LES ANGLES - FRANCE
http://faidutti.free.fr
faid...@free.fr