BLACK MARIA

Hey there! Let me introduce you to Black Maria, a super fun card game that can be played by 3 or 4 players. The objective of this game is to end up with the lowest score when a player reaches a score of 100. Intriguing, right?

SETUP

So, here’s how you set up the game. First, the cards are dealt clockwise and face down. The first dealer is chosen randomly, and then the dealer position passes to the left for each new round. Simple enough, huh?

Now comes the exciting part. The dealer shuffles the deck of cards and then deals each player their very own hand of cards. Exciting!

If you’re playing with 3 players, you’ll need to remove the 2 of clubs from the deck. Then, each player is dealt a cool 17 cards. Now, if you have 4 players, no worries, all the cards are dealt out evenly among you guys. No favoritism here!

After each round, it’s time for some strategic moves. Listen up! Each player will get the chance to pass three cards from their hand to the player on their right. Think carefully about which cards you want to pass. Strategy is key!

GAMEPLAY

Alright, it’s game time! Once all the cards are dealt and everyone has arranged their hand, the player sitting on the dealer’s left gets the honor of starting the game. The excitement builds!

In the game of Black Maria, all of us have to follow the lead if we can. But here’s the catch – there are no trump cards. To win a trick, you have to play the highest card of the suit that was led. The player who wins the trick gets to start the next one. However, if you don’t have a card of the leading suit, you can play any other card from your hand. This is a great opportunity to get rid of high cards and avoid winning unwanted suits.

We keep playing until one of us reaches a score of 100 points or more.

SCORING

This is a trick-taking game, but the goal is to win as few tricks as possible. In fact, it’s even better if you can avoid winning any tricks with hearts or the queen of spades. At the end of each round, we add up the number of hearts and the queen of spades that we’ve won. These points are then added to our score. Remember, our objective is to have the lowest score possible.

When you play the game of Hearts, there are different ways to keep score. It’s important to decide which scoring variation you’ll use before you start playing, and stick with it for the entire game.

The first option is the standard scoring used in the USA. In this version, each heart card is worth 1 point, and the Queen of Spades is worth a whopping 13 points.

Another variation is the one where each heart card is worth 1 point, the Queen of Spades is worth 13 points, the King of Spades is worth 10 points, and the Ace of Spades is worth 7 points.

The final scoring variation is similar to a game called Spot Hearts. In this version, hearts cards from 2 to 10 are worth their face value in points. The Jack, Queen, and King of Hearts are all worth 10 points each. The Ace of Hearts is worth 15 points, and the Queen of Spades is worth a whopping 25 points. Also, in this variation, the game is played to 500 points instead of the usual 100 points.

THE GAME ENDS

Once a player scores 100 points or more, the game comes to an end. The player with the lowest score wins the game.