Golden Ten

This is a game for 3 to 7 players, related to Hearts, played with a Rook deck of 56 cards. The cards are of four colors: red, yellow, green and black. In each color there are cards numbered from 14 (high) to 1 (low). The aim is to avoid wnning tricks containing red cards (especially the 5 and 10), while trying to win the trick containing the yellow 10 if you can.

Deal and play are clockwise. The dealer deals out the cards, one at a time, as far as they will go so that each player has equally many. With 3, 5 or 6 players there will be one or two cards left over; these are taken by the winner of the first trick.

The player to dealer's left leads to the first trick. When playing to a trick you must if possible play a card of the same color as the led card. If you have no cards of this color you may play any card. Whoever plays the highest card of the color that was led wins the trick and leads to the next.

When all the cards have been played each player counts the value of the cards in their tricks. Each red card in your tricks counts 1 point against you, except for the five which counts 5 against you and the ten which counts 10 against you. The 10 of yellow is called the Golden Ten and it reduces your red card penalties by 10 points; if you had fewer than 10 red penalty points, the Golden 10 reduces them to zero.

A game consists of six deals, the turn to deal passing to the left after each hand. The player with the lowest cumulative score of penalty points wins the game.