Regicide

Contributed by Robin Taylor (robintaylor83@hotmail.com)

Regicide means killing the king. This is a trick taking game with trump. A full 52-card deck is needed including two jokers (optional).

Players: The game was made for two. It can also be played with 3 or 4 as individuals or 4 as partners but it is best played with two players.

Rank of cards: the game starts and every hand starts with joker(high),K, 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,A. Joker is permanently high.

Objective: to win the majority of the tricks.

Deal: Before dealing, all tens, jacks and queens are removed from the deck: they are used to keep score. 9 cards are dealt to each player and top card of the reamining deck is flipped face up. The dealer has the option to pick up this top card: if s/he does then it is trump and the dealer must discard one card face down. If the dealer chooses not to take the top card but passes instead, then the next player may pick it up, to make it trump and must discard. If no-one picks it up then the dealer may decide trump. If a joker is turned up the dealer may pick it up and call anything trump.

Play: The dealer leads and opponent(s) must follow suit. A player who has no card of the suit led may play any card. The trick is won by the highest trump in it, or, if no trumps have been played, by the highest card of the suit led. If the trick is taken by any other person than the dealer, the winner of the trick may change the trump to a different suit, or reverse the rank of the cards (other than the joker) to joker(high),A,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,K, or may change both the trump suit and the card order, or may leave both as they are. Each time a trick is won by a player other than the player who led to it, the rank, trump or both can be changed again, if the player wishes. However, when a trick is won by the player who led to it, the trump suit and rank must remain the same for the next trick.

Scoring: the player with the most tricks at the end of the hand scores as many points and s/he has tricks. e.g. 5 tricks = 5 points, 6 tricks = 6 points, etc. If a player takes all ten tricks the score is 20 rather than 10. Games go to 50.

In a game with more than two players, there may be a tie for most tricks. In that case each of the tieing players scores a point for each trick they won. If two or more players reach 50 in the same deal, the player with the highest score wins; in case of a tie, another hand is played.

The Jacks, Queens, and Tens removed from the deck are used to keep score. The ten is placed face up with Jack and Queen on top of it. The number of pips showing on the ten are the units digit of the score, and the total number of pips showing on the Jack and Queen (which may be face up or face down) are the tens digit. For example if 4 spades are showing on the 10 and 2 clubs are showing on the J then the score is 24.