Soureh

Contributed by Lior Chaga

Participants

The game is designated for 2-4 participants.

Objective

Each participant aims to remain with the lowest score. In every match, the winner of the match gains no score, while the other participants gain score according to the cards they possess.

Dealing The Cards

The game is played with two decks of cards, leaving the Jokers and the picture cards out, so that there are 80 cards remaining: A-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 with four black and four red cards of each rank. The dealer hands each participant 4 cards face down aligned in a row, and 4 cards face up aligned in a parallel row to the first row. The closed cards row is set close to the participant while the opened cards row is set beyond the first row.

The rest of the cards are piled in the center, face down.

Cards Value

The value of each card is its numeric value. The 'Ace' is valued 1 or 11 (subject to the player's chioce).

Playing The Game

Each player, at his turn, draws a card from the pile. The player then can replace one of his 4 closed cards (which only he can see, any time), or replace one of the opponent's open cards, or throw the card to a second pile (face down).

If the participant chose to replace either his or his opponent's card, the replaced card is thrown to the second pile.

A participant can declare 'Soureh' when each of his closed cards has the correct relationship to the corresponding open card, according to the following rules:

• Against an open red card, there must be a closed card with a higher value.
• Against an open black card, there must be a closed card with a smaller value.
• Against an open 'Ace' there cannot be another 'Ace' (even though Aces can normally be counted as 1 or 11). Ane open Ace can be against any closed card except an Ace.

The rules for replacing cards:

• A player can replace any of his own closed cards that he wishes.
• A player can replace any of the opponents' open cards except for an 'Ace'. An 'Ace' can be replaced only by a 10 (regardless for its color).

The turn to play passes clockwise. A Match is ended when one of the participant declares 'Soureh' in his turn, when all of his card pairs correspond correctly to each other.

After a participant declares 'Soureh', each opponent has one more turn, in which he cannot declare 'Soureh' but he can replace an open card belonging to the participant who declared 'Soureh' in order to ruin his win, or replace one of his own closed cards in order to reduce his score, or replace one of the other opponents' open cards (in order to increase his score or in case the match continues because someone else ruined the 'Soureh' for the potential winner).

If player replaces a card belonging to the participant who declared 'Soureh', no other player can replace any of the Soureh player's cards before the Soureh player has had another turn.

When the turn come back to the player who declared 'Soureh', he can either reveal his closed cards and win (if his 'Soureh' is left unharmed) or he can continue playing. If someone ruined his 'Soureh' but he uses his turn to replace a card and reach 'Soureh' once again, he can declare 'Soureh' again, and everyone has another turn.

If the player who declared Soureh reveals his closed cards, the other players also reveal their closed cards and count their negative score.

Scoring

Each of the players other than the winner chooses from each pair of cards (closed vs. opened) one of the cards and adds its value to his accumulated score.

If a participant reaches a score that can be devided by 100, 50 points are deducted from his score.

Winning The Entire Game

There are two variations for deciding on a winner:

• A certain threshold is agreed upon. When one of the players reaches that threshold, the player with the lowest score wins the game.
• A certain threshold is aggreed upon. Each player whose score goes above that threshold leaves the game. The winner is the last one standing.

Another variation of the game

In a game with 3 or 4 participants, if a participant gains 'Soureh' and no other participant ruins it, the winning player leaves the round. Each other player adds 10 points to his score, but the match is continued until only one participant is left in the match and he receives an additional score according to his cards (as stated before).

If a player declares 'Soureh', until he gets his next turn no other participant can declare 'Soureh' even if during the last round he has reached a state of 'Soureh'.