I Promise – A Simple Trick Taking Game

Hey there! I’m here to introduce you to a cool card game called “I Promise”. It’s a great game for kids to learn about bidding and get ready for more advanced games like Spades.

What’s awesome about this game is that you don’t need teams and it works with just 2 or more players. So, it’s perfect for a fun game night with friends and family.

Here’s How It Works

For “I Promise,” you’ll need a regular deck of 52 cards. To decide who deals and keeps score, every player draws a card from the deck. The player with the lowest card becomes the first dealer and scorekeeper.

The dealer shuffles the deck and hands out the cards, making sure each player has the same number. Don’t worry about the leftover cards, we won’t be using them in the game.

Let’s talk about the final card that the dealer is dealt. It’s an important card because it determines the trump suit for the round. The trump suit is the suit that has special powers and can beat all other suits in the game.

Let’s Start Bidding!

Now that each player has their cards and knows the trump suit, it’s time to start bidding. Bidding is when you guess how many tricks you think you can win. A trick is when you play a card and everyone else at the table plays a card too. The card with the highest value wins the trick. Starting with the player to the left of the dealer, each player will take turns saying, “I promise to take…” and stating how many tricks they will try to win. The scorekeeper needs to write down everyone’s bids.

Once each player has made their bid, the round can begin.

Let’s Play!

In the game, I start by choosing a card from my hand and putting it on the table. The next players have to play a card with the same suit if they have one. But if they don’t have a matching suit, they can play a trump card if they have one. And if they don’t have a matching suit or a trump card, they can play any other card they want.

The player who plays the highest card in the suit that was led or the highest trump card wins the trick. And whoever wins the trick gets to go first in the next round.

We keep playing like this until all the tricks have been played. Once that happens, we add up the scores to see who wins.

SCORING

When each round ends, you get points based on how many tricks you took. If you take exactly the number of tricks you bid, you get a bonus of ten points. If not, you just get one point per trick. For example, let’s say I bid 5 and take 5 tricks. I’ll earn 15 points. But if someone else bids 6 and takes a different number of tricks, they only earn one point per trick.

After we add up the scores, it’s the next player’s turn to deal, and the game keeps going.

WINNING

The first player to reach 100 points or more wins the game.

I promise – learn to play with