Rufmariasch: A Fun Trick-Taking Game

Welcome to Rufmariasch, a thrilling game for four players where the objective is to score enough points to defeat your opponents. As you play, you’ll either earn payments or pay your opponents, depending on the outcome of each round.

Before diving into the game, it’s crucial that you and your fellow players decide on the stake – how much money will be exchanged between winners and losers after each round.

Game Setup

To get started, make sure you have a standard deck of cards, but remove all the cards numbered six and below, leaving you with a 32-card deck.

Randomly designate the first dealer, who will pass to the left in each new round. The dealer will shuffle the deck, and their right-hand neighbor will cut it. Each player will begin with a hand of eight cards, dealt in batches of four.

As the cards are dealt for the first time, I eagerly await my turn. Sitting to the left of the dealer, I have the important task of calling out the trump suit and choosing my potential partner. With a confident voice, I declare a rank of card and a suit, hoping that someone else at the table holds that card in their hand. They will become my partner, even without saying a word. Of course, I could also decide to play alone by calling a card from my own hand. The beauty of this game is that the declarations for the trump suit and partner do not have to match. I have the freedom to choose a different trump suit and declare a partner card from a different suit if I wish.

Once the declarations are made, the dealer proceeds to deal the second batch of 4 cards to each player. The anticipation grows as the cards are distributed, each one potentially holding the key to victory.

Card Ranking and Values

In Rufmariasch, the ranking of the cards is as follows: Ace is the highest, followed by 10, King, Over (queen), Under (jack), 9, 8, and 7 as the lowest.

When it comes to a game of cards, knowing the value of each card is crucial. In this game, the Aces and 10s hold a special significance – they’re worth 10 points each. And here’s an interesting twist: the winner of the last trick gets an extra 10 points on top of that!

GAMEPLAY

Now let’s talk about how the game is played. It all starts with the player sitting to the left of the dealer. This lucky player gets to make the first move and can choose any card from their hand. But here’s the catch: the other players must follow suit if they have a card of the same suit. And if they don’t have a card of the same suit, they must play a trump card instead. However, if they can’t do either, they are free to play any card they want. The goal is to always try to beat the highest card played in the current trick.

So, how do you win a trick? Well, there are two ways. If there’s a trump card in play, the highest trump takes the trick. But if there’s no trump card, then the highest card of the suit that was led wins the trick. The lucky winner collects the trick and gets to lead the next one.

Hey there! Let me share an interesting rule with you before we wrap up the first trick. You see, if I have the king and queen of the same suit, I can make a special announcement. I can say “I’ve got 20!” if they are from the regular suits, or “I’ve got 40!” if they are from the trump suit. This special announcement tells everyone that if I win at least one trick, I’ll get those extra points. To make the announcement, I simply place both cards faceup on the table so that everyone can see the suit. It’s a cool way to increase my chances of scoring big!

SCORING

When we finish a round, we get points. If we didn’t declare anything before the first trick ended, we just need to score 50 or more points to win. But if we declared something, we have to reach a certain amount of points to win. For example, if we declared 20 additional points, we need to score 60 or more points. If we declared 40 additional points, we need to score 80 or more points. And if we declared 60 additional points, we need to score 100 or more points to win.

Once the scores are settled, we make the payments. The team that lost the game has to pay the winners a number of stakes that is equal to the difference between their team’s score totals.

END OF GAME

The game ends when we no longer want to play.

The game ends when we no longer want to play.