Marijnissen
Contributed by Martin Hulsman (mhulsman@nikhef.nl)
This is a variation on the President game some friends and I developed during our stay in Hungary last year. It is a socialist variation, so the purpose of keeping a social ladder is removed. In this variant, the winner of the game is Stalin, the second winner is Gorbachev, the second loser is Wim Kok and the loser is Marijnissen, the latter two after dutch socialist politicians. The loser gets the winner's two BEST cards, and passes two cards of his choice to the winner. Similarly, the second loser and second winner exchange one card. Marijnissen also leads. The card order is slightly different: (joker), 2, A, 10, K, Q, J, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. Jokers are used if the pack of cards has two of them, usually not.
We use no playing after passing. It is allowed to play higher, equal or
one step down. Red cards beat equal or lower black cards and all-red
combinations beat black and mixed combinations (red=socialist).
So on 
5 you can play all 4's, all 5's and all higher cards, on 
5 you
can play 4, 
4, 5, 6, 
6, 6, 6 and all higher cards. 5 5
-> any combin. of 44, 55, ...; 5 5 -> any combin. of 44, 55, ...; but
5 5 -> 4+4 or any combin. of 66, 77, ... Black 2 beats everything
except red 2, if there are jokers, black joker beats everything (incl 2's)
except red joker.
Single cards, pairs and triplets can be completed to quadruplets (volle
bak = full house). Combinations of equal colours are winners, for ex. if
you play 5 5 on 4 4 you win that round and a new round is started (doodslag = manslaughter). This doesn't apply to quadruplets. Four Q's on top of each other is called "ruzie" (a fight), the person to put the fourth Q on the stack is out of the game, loses, and has to complete a task assigned to him by the other players (i.e. get the next round of drinks). Four 7's is called "vuile was" (laundry), the game is terminated immediately, and the cards are redealt using the last social order.
The fun thing about this game is that you just can't be losing all evening, everyone gets to be Stalin sometimes.