Card Games: Compendium Games

Some card games combine several different mechanisms. There can be a series of different sub-games played either in a fixed sequence or in a sequence chosen by the players. There are also games which have several phases with different mechanisms within one hand.

Serial games

Typically, each deal has different objectives. A common format includes ;

• several reverse deals in which the aim is to avoid taking tricks or taking certain cards in tricks,
• some deals in which the aim is to win tricks,
• sometimes a deal in which the the aim is to get rid of cards by laying them out in suit and sequence.

The original idea was to play these different games in a fixed sequence. Later, players had the idea to make these games more challenging by allowing players to choose which game to play next on the basis of their cards, usually with the restriction that each player can only choose each game once. In some of the games listed below the sub-games are played in a fixed sequence, in some the next sub-game is chosen by one of the players, and some exist in both versions - fixed sequence or choice.

• Barbu - a French game which became popular with Bridge players in an enhanced version with doubling options added.
• King - a group of slightly different games with the same name, played in Belgium, Turkey, Russia, Italy, Portugal and Brazil.
• Kierki - a Polish game.
• Trix - an Arabic game played in several Middle Eastern countries.
• Bambu - another game from France
• Bismarck - played in Scandinavia, and also to some extent in English-speaking countries
• Mizerka - from Poland
• Rentz - from Romania
• Lora - played in Serbia and Croatia and the related game Lórum from Hungary
• Canadian Salad, from North America
• Unusually in the Swiss game Coiffeur Schieber Jass all the options are point-trick games, played in a sequence chosen by the players.

Phase games

The games of the Poch group end with a stops game, but this is preceded by a poker-like vying game played with the same cards. In many versions there is also a first stage in which stakes are paid out for holding specific cards.

The Swedish game Chicago has three phases with a draw and discard before each phase. The first two are showdowns won by the player with the best poker hand. The third is played in tricks, and is won by the winner of the last trick.

In the American game Hollywood Garbage a series of light-hearted games of chance is played using the same cards.

Many beating games have an initial phase in which the players collect the cards they will use for the beating phase. Sometimes this first phase is a kind of trick-taking as in Skitgubbe; sometimes it is a kind of card exchange game as in NLK.