Welcome to Manni!

Hey there, I’m here to introduce you to a cool card game called Manni. It’s a game that three people can play and it’s all about trick-taking. The goal of the game is to have the most points when it’s all said and done. To be precise, the game ends when a player reaches 10 or more points.

In Manni, you earn points by winning tricks, but there’s a catch! You have to win a minimum of 4 tricks in a round to score any points. This sets it apart from other trick-taking games, giving it a unique twist while still maintaining some familiar elements. That’s what makes Manni such a captivating and refreshing take on a classic card game.

Ready to play? Here’s how it’s done:

Setting up for Manni is pretty straightforward. First, you need to remove all the twos from a standard deck of 52 cards. Once you’ve done that, give the remaining deck a good shuffle and deal the cards. Keep the twos aside because they’re going to determine the trump suit for the game.

When I’m about to deal the cards, I’ll give each of you 12 cards, splitting them into groups of 4. The remaining 12 cards will be placed face down in the middle for later use, and we call them the “Manni.”

LET’S START PLAYING

Once everyone has their hands, we’ll decide which suit is the trump. In Manni, we follow a specific order for the trump suit: hearts, spades, diamonds, clubs, and then back to hearts. We’ll keep going in this sequence until the game is over.

So here’s how it goes down: after trump is determined, the player on the dealer’s left gets to decide whether they want to stick with their hand or switch it up with the Manni. If they pass on the chance, it moves on to the next player on the left, and this keeps going until someone decides to take the Manni or all three players opt to keep their original cards. If someone does make the swap, the game starts right away. But if no one goes for the Manni, then we’re playing with the cards we were dealt initially.

Once the card swapping is done, the player on the dealer’s left takes the lead on the first trick. We all try to follow suit if we can, but hey, if we can’t, we can play whatever card we want. The player with the highest trump wins the hand, or if there are no trumps, it’s the one with the highest card of the original suit led.

The winner of the hand gets to lead the next one, and this keeps going until all the cards have been played from our hands.

Ending the Game and Scoring

Throughout the game, we keep track of the score, counting it at the end of each round. We all start with 0 points, and our points increase based on how many tricks we win in a round.

If you win more than four rounds in a game, for each trick you win over four, you earn an additional point. So, if you win five tricks in a round, you earn 1 point.

On the other hand, for every point below four that you win, you lose a point. For example, if you win three tricks, you lose 1 point. If you win two tricks, you lose 2 points, and so on. If you win exactly four tricks, you won’t earn or lose any points.

The game comes to an end once one or more players have reached a total of 10 points. The player with the highest number of points becomes the winner.