Nexus

A trick taking card game for two players contributed by Curtis Parks .

The Deck

Nexus is played with a deck of 42 cards made by removing numbers 2-4 from a standard 52-card deck and including both jokers, one of which must be marked as the big joker, the other as little.

Order of Power

Big Joker, Little Joker, Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, ... , 2.

The jokers are the highest cards of the trump suit, and in the plain suits, the highest card is the ace.

The Point System

Each honor is worth 1 point. The honors are all the Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks and Jokers. Altogether, there is a grand total of 18 points.

The Play

Dealer is decided by any method between the two players.

The cards are shuffled and the opposing player cuts the deck.

The dealer deals the first 6 cards face down to the kitty. The last two cards of the kitty are separated from the rest of the kitty and placed in plain view of both players.

After the dealer has completed the kitty, he deals 9 cards to the non dealer and himself.

The first of the two separated kitty cards is then exposed and determines the trump suit.

The first round is then played out to normal trick taking rules. There are nine tricks. The non-dealer leads to the first trick. Any card may be led. The other player must follow suit if possible, the Jokers counting as members of the trump suit. If both players play the same suit the higher card wins. If one player plays a trump, the trump wins. If the players play different, non-trump suits the first card wins. There is no obligation for the second player to beat the first player's card when following suit or to trump when unable to follow suit. The winner of each trick stores the two cards in his trick pile and leads to the next trick.

After the first 9 tricks have been played the process is then repeated. The dealer again deals 9 cards to each player, which exhausts the deck, and exposes the last separated card of the kitty to determine the trump suit for the second round.

There are 4 unexposed cards in the kitty and 2 exposed, a total of 6 cards. All of these cards are awarded to the winner of the last trick of the second round.

If a joker is exposed as a trump indicator, there is no trump except the jokers themselves. The dealer adds 4 bonus points to his total for this very unlikely event.