Welcome to La Podrida!

I’m here to introduce you to an exciting card game called La Podrida. It’s a game that can be played with 3 to 7 players. The objective is to bid on the exact number of tricks you think you can win. If you take more or fewer tricks than you bid, it counts as a loss.

Before starting the game, it’s important for all players to decide on a target score.

The Set-up

To determine who goes first, the dealer is chosen randomly. The dealer then passes the deal to the next player in a clockwise direction.

The deck of cards is shuffled thoroughly and then each player is dealt one card at a time until they have the appropriate number of cards based on the number of players. The next card is turned face-up and the suit of that card becomes the trump suit for that round. The trump suit beats all other suits. The rest of the cards are stacked with the trump card on top.

Hey there! Let me tell you all about La Podrida, a really cool card game that you’ll love. In this game, we play with a set of cards, and the number of cards we use depends on how many players are joining in. Here’s the breakdown:

• If we have 3-5 players, we each get 10 cards.
• For 6 players, we each get 8 cards.
• And if we have 7 players, we each get 7 cards.

Now, each hand is played with one less card than the previous hand until we get down to just one card. Then, we start adding cards back, one at a time, until we reach the number we started with. Let me give you an example: if we start with 8 cards, the series would go like this: 8 cards, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. So, that’s a total of 15 hands per game. Pretty cool, right?

When it comes to ranking the cards in La Podrida, we keep it traditional. Here’s how they rank:

First, we have the Ace, which is the highest-ranking card. Then we have the King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and finally, the 2, which is the lowest-ranking card.

Now, let’s talk about bidding:

When we’re playing the bidding game, we all start by taking turns, beginning with the player to the left of the dealer and going around the table in a clockwise direction. And the dealer, they get to bid last. Each player has to make a bid, which is a number that represents how many tricks they think they can win with the hand they have. But here’s the thing – everyone has to make a bid, even if it’s zero. Basically, if you bid zero, that means you’re not expecting to win any tricks at all. But if you think you can win some tricks, you make a bid accordingly.

Now, the interesting part is that players can change their bids if the opponent to their left hasn’t made a bid yet. It adds a layer of strategy to the game because you can adjust your bid based on what others are doing. But wait, there’s a little twist! The dealer, they have a restriction. They can’t bid a number that would make the total number of tricks bid equal to the total number of tricks available. It keeps things fair and prevents any funny business.

And here’s another rule that keeps things exciting – a hand has to be either overbid or underbid. In other words, someone’s bid has to be off. There’s no room for exact matches here. So, if someone is at an exact match, they have to change their bid before the first card is played.

GAMEPLAY

When you start playing the game, you sit to the left of the dealer, and you’re the one who gets to make the first move. You can choose any suit, even the trump suit. After you make your move, the game continues in a clockwise direction. The other players have to follow suit. If they don’t have a card of that suit, they have to play a trump card. And if they don’t have a trump card, they can play any card they want.

The player with the highest-ranked trump card wins the trick. But if no trump card was played, then the player with the highest-value card of the leading suit wins the trick. And the player who wins a trick gets to lead the next one. This goes on until all tricks have been played. Then, the dealer deals the next hand, and the process repeats until all hands have been dealt and all tricks have been won.

SCORING

Before we start the game, either a player or a third party is chosen to keep score. If one of the players is the scorekeeper, we need to keep an eye on them so they don’t make any mistakes or cheat. There are different ways to score in the game La Podrida.

The easiest way to score is by following this rule: if a player wins the exact number of tricks they said they would, they get a score of 10 plus the number of tricks they bid. For example, if they bid 5 tricks and actually won 5, their total score would be 15 for that round. If they didn’t win the exact number of tricks they bid, we cross out their failed bid and write a ‘1’ in front of the successful ones.

Another common way to score is that each player earns 1 point for every trick they win, plus an extra 10 points if they win the exact number of tricks they bid.

So, when it comes to scoring in La Podrida, there are a few different methods you can use. Whether you choose the simplest method or the most common one, keeping track of the score adds a fun element to the game.