All Fours

GOAL OF ALL FOURS: The aim is to collect valuable tricks.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: You can play with 4 players divided into 2 teams, or just 2 players.

NUMBER OF CARDS: You will need a standard deck of 52 cards to play.

CARD RANKS: The ranking of the cards in All Fours goes from highest to lowest: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

TYPE OF GAME: All Fours is a trick-taking game.

AUDIENCE: This game is suitable for adults.

INTRODUCING ALL FOURS

All Fours originated in England during the 17th century. It later gained popularity in the United States, where it became a favorite in the 19th century and inspired the creation of many similar games. In Trinidad, it is known as All Foes and is considered the national game. Here, we present the rules according to Trinidadian tradition.

DEALING THE CARDS

The goal of All Fours is pretty simple – win tricks with valuable cards and score points. All you have to do is have the most valuable cards by the end of the trick-taking to get a single game point. But wait, there’s more! You can even earn extra points by doing some cool stuff, like taking the jack from the trump suit, holding the highest and lowest card from the trump suit, and even scoring for the card that is flipped for trumps in the deal.

Now, let’s talk about the dealer. The player who cuts the deck and gets the highest card becomes the first dealer. Then, the deal and play move to the right or counterclockwise. Each player gets 6 cards from the dealer. How the dealer gives out the cards is up to them – they can do it one at a time or in sets of three. But here’s the catch, whatever method they choose, they have to stick with it for the whole game. So choose wisely!

Once everyone has gotten their six cards, it’s time for the dealer to reveal the next card. This card will determine the trump suit for the round. If the card is an ace, six, or jack, the dealer’s team will earn points based on the following:

Ace: 1 point

Six: 2 points

Jack: 3 points

The game starts when the player to my right decides if they’re happy with the trump suit. If they are, they say “stand.” But if they’re not satisfied, they can ask for a different trump by saying “I beg.” The dealer can choose to flip over a new trump, but they don’t have to. If they decide to keep the trump suit, they say “take one.” The player who begged earns 1 point, and then the game begins.

However, if the dealer changes the trump suit, they have to get rid of the current trump card. They also have to deal 3 extra cards to each player, and flip over the next trump card. The dealer can score points for this new trump card using the same system as before.

Here’s what happens next:

– If the new trump suit is different, we start playing with the new trump.

– But if the suit is the same, the dealer repeats the process. They deal 3 more cards to each player and flip over a new trump. They can keep scoring points like this until they find a new trump.

That’s how the game works!

If the deck runs out of cards before a new trump card is revealed, the dealer will reshuffle and deal again. The dealer keeps any points they have earned so far.

Now let’s talk about how the game is played. The player to the right of the dealer goes first on the first trick. After that, the winner of each trick leads the next one. When it’s your turn to lead a trick, you can choose any card from your hand. But there are some rules you have to follow:

– If you lead with a trump card, everyone else must also play a trump card if they have one. If they don’t have a trump card, they can play any card from their hand.

– If you lead with a non-trump card, everyone else must either play a card of the same suit if they have one, or play a trump card. If they can’t do either, they can play any card.

To win a trick, you need to play either the highest trump card or the highest card of the suit that was led with, if no trumps were played.

So here’s the deal: we keep playing until every player has played all their cards. That’s when the game is over. Normally, we play 6 tricks – that’s 1 trick for each card each player gets. But sometimes, if the dealer gave us more cards, we might have 6 or even 12 tricks, maybe even more. Cool, right?

Now, let’s talk about how we score.

Once we’ve played all the tricks, it’s time to tally up the points. Here’s how we do it:

First up is the High card. The team that had the highest trump card wins 1 point. Simple as that.

Then we have the Low card. This one goes to the team with the lowest trump card. But wait, here’s the twist – the point goes to the original holder of the card, not the person who won it. Sneaky, huh?

Game: In this game, the goal is to win the most valuable cards by taking tricks. Each suit has its top 5 cards assigned a point value. Here’s the breakdown: Ace = 4 points, King = 3 points, Queen = 2 points, Jack = 1 point, 10 = 10 points, and 2-9 = 0 points. Each team adds up the point value of their cards, and the team with the highest total wins the game.

The game is won by the first team to earn 14 or more points.

PENALTIES

CALLING

Calling occurs when a player reveals a card out of turn. If this happens, the revealed card must stay on the table in front of the player who revealed it. At any point during the game, another player can call for the revealed card to be played if it is a legal play. The owner of the card must then play the revealed card instead of a card from their hand.