Barry's and Les's

Originally contributed by Anthony O'Dea - this is a copy of the page formerly at http://angreag.levels.unisa.edu.au/~anthony/barryles.htm

Introduction

Barry's & Les's is a card game which evolved from Presidents & Arseholes at the Ian Wark Research Institute. The originators of the game are Andrew Michelmore, Tim Muster, Susan Kapsabelis, Adam Feiler, Michael Sheridan, Jo Stearnes and Anthony O'Dea.

Background

We play Presidents with a 54 card deck (both Jokers included) and with the President exchanging two cards with the Arsehole (VP and VA exchange one). One Joker beats single cards and pairs, two Jokers beat three-of-a-kind and four-of-a-kind. After each round, players change seats around the President and VP. If the President is in office for three consecutive rounds, he can introduce a rule.

Barry's & Les's came about thanks to a set of cards which have blue diamonds and green clubs. Various rules were occasionally introduced based on the colour of the cards. One day, three of these rules were brought in, taking the game to another level. Ever since, we've been playing with these rules and haven't felt the need to introduce any new ones.

Rules

Pairs, three-of-a-kinds and four-of-a-kinds play as for Presidents. The three rules that seperate Barry's from Presidents are:

1. The player of a green card (club) may play a higher card on it. There is no limit on the number of green cards you can play. If all your cards are green, you can play them all at once.

2. If a blue card (diamond) is played, the next card must be higher and red (heart). Thus, only three cards (two Jokers and the red 2) beat the blue Ace. The blue 3 can be beaten by 14 cards rather then the usual 50.

3. If a black card (spade) is played, the next card must be lower. The black 3 is therefore a winner (nothing is lower). Jokers can't be played on black cards. High black sucks, low black is okay. We have had a player go from Barry (President) to Les (Arsehole) with only a Joker left in his hand.

As different coloured cards have different powers, Barry and Vice Barry can choose which colour they receive from Les and Vice Les, but only if the Les's have multiple cards of the same denomination. Receiving the black 2 ("the useless 2") sucks.