Jukha
Introduction and Objective
Jukha is a card game played in Israel using a standard international deck, in which players try to collect four equal cards with which they can exit the game. The last two players remaining in the game when all the others have gone out are the losers. The deck includes one Joker, and so long as a player holds the Joker they cannot exit.
The game mechanism is very simple, but the interest is in the conversation during the game, during which players may try to collaborate or may lie in order to mislead each other.
"Jukha" is the name of a humorous character in Ladino and other folk tales, and is also a common personal name among eastern Jews with no particular meaning.
This page is based on information from Itamar Tsruya.
Players and Cards and Objective
In theory there can be from 3 to 13 players but it is best for 4 or 5. If more than 7 people want to play it works best to split them into two groups, and then consolidate them into a single game after some people have exited.
Some cards from a standard international pack is used. There need to be four equal cards for each player plus a joker. For example five players could play with all the aces, kings, queens, jacks and tens plus one joker (21 cards). Then if there were 2 jokers in the original deck, another group of six could play a separate game with the 9's, 8's, 7's, 6's, 5's, 4's and the other joker from the same deck (25 cards).
The suits do not matter in this game and the cards have no ranking - it only matters whether cards are equal or not.
The objective is to have four equal cards in your hand at the start of your turn, in which case you show them and exit the game, so that you cannot be one of the losers.
Deal
Deal and play are clockwise. The first dealer, who can be chosen by any convenient random method, deals all the cards one at a time face down so that the player to dealer's left has 5 cards and each of the other players has 4. The players look at their cards must must not show them to the other players.
In subsequent games, the player who was the first to exit with four of a kind will be the one to receive five cards in the deal, so the new dealer should be the player to this person's right.
Play
At the start of each turn each of the players in the game have four cards except for one player who has five.
The player to the left of the five-card player takes their turn. If their hand consists of four equal cards the player shows them and exits the game. The turn then passes to the next player to the left.
If the player on turn does not have four of a kind, they must ask the 5-card player for a card, and may specify the rank of the card they would like to have. The 5-card player must offer one card face down to the asker and may say what rank the offered card is.
The asker may either take the offered card, which ends their turn, or may ask for a second card, in which case the five-card player must offer a second card face down.
When offered two cards, the asker can take either of those two cards, and the other card is taken back by the player who offered it. This ends the asker's turn.
Alternatively the asker can ask for a third card. In this case the five-card player must offer a third card, which the asker must take, and take back both the first two offered card.
In all cases the asker ends their turn with five cards and the game continues with the next player taking a turn.
Note that having four equal cards and a fifth card is not sufficient to exit the game. You would need to somehow induce the next player to take that fifth card and not one of your set of four, and then wait until your next turn to declare your four of a kind and exit.
Note also that when asking for a card, players are allowed to lie about what rank they would like to have, and a player offering a card is allowed to lie about what it is.
There are two restrictions on conversation allowed during the game:
- players are not allowed to mention or refer to suits;
- players are not allowed to refer to or mention the joker.
Clearly it is not possible for the player holding the joker to win the game. However the play continues until there are just two players who have not exited the game and these two are both losers.
Example of play
- Player A asks player B who sits to his right (and who is currently the player holding 5 cards amongst the 3 player group) for a king.
- Player B needs to present a single card and can say whatever he wants about the card. "Here you go", "This is a Queen" and so on and places the card upside down on the table.
- Player A now needs to decide if according to player B's words he should believe and take this card. Player A determined that he shouldn't trust this card and asks: "I'd like another king if you have one"
- Player B says "Here you go" and places another one.
- Now player A can pick either upside down card from the table. But still, from reading player B, he isn't confident that he had any Kings to begin with but he is sure B has placed the joker amongst the 2 cards already there and so decides to call for a 3rd card.
- According to the rules the third time you request a card you must take it so he picks it up and it is indeed a king and becomes the 5 cards player who is going to be asked next.
- Player B picks his 2 other cards back from the table to his hand.
- Now player C asks player A for an Ace, player A has 4 kings and 1 Ace, if he can convince player C to take the Ace, player A will now have exactly 4 Kings, he has to wait until his next turn to reveal them.
- Once it's player A's turn again to ask for a card, instead he will reveal his set of 4 Kings and leave the rest of the players to keep going.
Note
The player with the 5 cards can offer any card(s) they wish regardless of what the asking player requested, and can even choose to offer a card before being asked. After asking for and taking a card one interesting tactic is not to look at the card you received but to leave it face down on the table and offer it to the next person before you even know what it is. This is legal and robs the next player of the opportunity to influence what you offer them by specifying the card they would like to be given. However it may be that the unknown card you offer happens to be the card the asker would have wanted.
Variants
Itamar Tsruya mentions some other ways of ending the game that are sometimes used:
- As soon as any player exits the game the play ends and the player holding the joker is the loser (this may have been the original rule), or
- When only two players remain the player holding the joker is the loser.