Seven Card Combo
Contributed by Stephen McVerry
Players and Cards
- 2 - 4 Players.
- Standard 52 card deck.
- No jokers are used.
- Cards rank from Ace being lowest and Highest. (A-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-J-Q-K-A)
- You may use ace after a king and before a 2 - e.g. Queen-King-Ace-Two-Three.
Object of the game
The Object of the game is to avoid scoring points. The player with the lowest score after 3 matches wins.
Dealing
Dealing and play are clockwise. Deal so that each player has four cards. After each hand the next player clockwise deals. The undealt portion of the deck is placed in the center of the table and the top card is placed face-up next to the deck to start a discard pile.
Playing a Round
The First Hand
The player left of the dealer starts. The first player may discard any number of cards in his hand and places them face down to his left. He must then draw the number of cards he has discarded plus one extra card. He has the option to draw these all cards from the top of the face down deck, or may take the face up card from the discard pile and draw the remainder from the deck. If he takes the face up discard, then after he has drawn, a new card is turned over from the top of the deck to restart the discard pile. It is possible to discard no cards at all, in which case you just draw one card.
The next player to the left then passes any number of cards, placing them face down to his left, and must also draw that number and one more. Before drawing, he looks at the cards passed by the previous player (without showing them to the other players) and may choose some of these to add to his hand, up to the number of cards re requires. He is not forced to draw any of these passed cards. The rest of the cards he needs he must draw from the top of the deck. He places any passed cards that he chose not to take, in any order he chooses, face up on top of the discard pile. The cards of the discard pile are overlapped, so that all can be seen by all players.
The rest of the players do the same in turn, the dealer playing last. In the case that the player before you does not pass any cards you have the option of taking the cards you need in any combination from the top of the deck and the top of the discard pile. Any time that the whole discard pile is taken, a new card is turned over from the top of the stock to begin a new discard pile.
The first hand is now complete, and everyone should now have 5 cards. The cards (if any) discarded by the dealer are lying face down to the dealer's left, ready to be picked up by the first player in the second hand.
The Second Hand
The second hand is played by the same rules as the first except the first player's turn is played the same way as everyone else's. At the end of the second hand all players have 6 cards.
The Third Hand
The third hand is played like the second. The third hand completes the round. At this point everyone has 7 cards, and the final cards passed by the dealer are not used.
Scoring
At this point all players have 7 cards, some of which may form combinations. It is possible for the same card to be part of several combinations at once. Cards in combinations count zero, but each card that is not part of any combination counts one point. Your aim is to have a score that is as low as possible.
There are three ways that a card can be part of a combination and therefore not count for a point:
- Any cards in a straight of four or more cards of consecutive rank count zero.
- If you have four or more cards of one suit, cards of this suit count zero for you.
- If you have two or more cards of the same rank, all cards of this rank count zero for you.
It is also possible to score minus points:
- minus 1 point if you have three pairs
- minus 1 point if you have three-of-a-kind and a pair (full house)
- minus 4 points if you have four cards of a rank
- minus 4 points if you have a seven card straight
- minus 4 points if you have seven cards of the same suit.
You can only count one combination scoring minus points - for example if you had 3-3-6-6-Q-Q-Q you could count minus 1 for three pairs or minus 1 for a full house but not both.
All cards that are not zero because they belong to a combination give you one point.
Examples:
4, 
5, 6, 
7, 9, 
10, Q - 1 point for the 10 - the other cards belong to the straight and/or the set of four hearts.
5-5-8-8-9-9-A - zero: plus one for the ace and minus one for the three pairs. If your ace had been a club you would have scored minus 1.
2-2-2-2-K-K-K - minus 4 points for four of a kind.
Hands, Rounds, Matches, and Games.
As we have seen, a round consists of three hands, and ends when everyone has 7 cards and the scores are reckoned.
A match consists of one round for each player. In a match, each player has one turn to be dealer.
A game consists of three matches. Whoever has the lowest score at the end of the game wins.
This game was created originally by Stephen McVerry. This version is the revised rules updated from the original. Credit goes to Stephen McVerry, Ryan McVerry, Danny Hutnik and Nick Tyson. Any questions send to me in email at .