KAISER

Hey there! Let me tell you about Kaiser, an exciting card game designed for four players. In this game, you’ll form two teams of two, with partners sitting across from each other. The ultimate objective? To be the first team to reach a score of 52 points or more. And how do you do that? By strategically bidding and winning tricks! Ready to dive in?

SETUP

Before we get started, let me explain the setup. Kaiser is typically played with a standard deck of cards, but we’ll need to make a few small modifications. The deck will consist of 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces. However, we’ll swap out the 7 of spades for the 3 of spades, and replace the 7 of hearts with the 5 of hearts. These changes add an extra twist to the game!

So here’s how it goes: we start by randomly choosing someone to be the first dealer. Then, for each new round, the dealer passes the deck to the left. The dealer shuffles the deck and deals each player one card at a time, going in a circle. Each player gets 8 cards.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. If a player looks at their hand and sees that they have no aces, face cards, or either the 3 or 5, they can ask for a re-deal. In that case, the same dealer reshuffles and deals again.

Let’s Talk About the Cards

Before we move on, let me explain how the cards are ranked and valued. The highest card is the Ace, followed by the King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, and 7/5/3. But here’s the twist: the 3 of spades and the 5 of hearts have special values. If you win a trick with the 3 of spades, it’s worth negative 3 points. On the other hand, if you win a trick with the 5 of hearts, it’s worth 5 points. So, keep an eye out for these cards during the game!

It’s Time to Bid

After everyone has their hands, it’s time for bidding. Each player needs to decide how many points they think they can win in the round. The goal is to bid the right amount so that you can call the trump suit for that round.

When it’s my turn to bid in the card game, I can either say a number or decide to pass. The bidding always starts with the player on the left side of the dealer. The smallest number I can bid is 6, while the highest is 12. During my bid, I can either choose a specific suit to be the trumps or I can opt for no-trumps. If I bid a higher number of points, it beats a lower bid. However, if I bid no-trumps, it trumps any bid with a suit called.

Now, when I’m making my bid, it’s important that I bid higher than the current highest bid. But the dealer has a special advantage – they can choose to match the highest bid and win. However, if all the players decide to pass, then the dealer is required to make a bid of at least the minimum value.

GAMEPLAY

When the bidding is over, the game begins. The person who won the bid gets to choose the trump suit (or no-trump if no suit was chosen) and starts the game by playing the first card. The other players then take turns playing their cards in a clockwise direction. If you have a card of the same suit as the one led, you must play it. If you don’t have a card of the same suit, you can play any card, including trumps cards.

The winner of each trick is the one who played the highest trump card, if trumps were played. If no trumps were played, the winner is the one who played the highest card of the suit that was led. The winner collects the trick and leads the next one.

SCORING

Once all the tricks have been played and won, it’s time to score. Both teams count the number of tricks they won. Each trick you win earns you 1 point. If you win the 5 of hearts, you get an additional 5 points. However, if you win the 3 of spades, you lose 3 points.

If you’re on the bidding team and you score at least the number of points you bid, you get to add those points to your overall score. And guess what? If you bid no trumps, your score gets doubled! But here’s the flip side – if you didn’t earn as many points as you bid, you actually lose that many points. And yep, you guessed it, if no-trumps were called, that loss gets doubled too.

Now, let’s say you’re on the opposing team. If you’re not the bidders, you still get to add your points to your score, unless your cumulative score is already 45 points or more. Once you reach that milestone, you can’t earn any more points unless you become the bidders. But hey, hold on, you still lose points for having the 3 of spades. Bummer, right?

Oh, and by the way, it’s totally possible to end up with a negative score. Ouch!

GAME OVER

The game is officially over when one of the teams scores 52 or more points. And when that happens, they are the winners, plain and simple.