The King of Hearts Has Five Sons

An Exciting Game of Uncertainty

What makes The King of Hearts Has Five Sons so thrilling is that you never know who will emerge as the victor! The possibility of turning the tides in the final moments exists – it has been done before! The objective is straightforward: accumulate the fewest points possible. Discard those cards in your possession and keep your score as low as can be!

Getting Started

Let’s get the game rolling by setting up the decks. These decks consist of three Jokers and all the cards from three through ten, along with the Jacks, Queens, and Kings of all four suits. To mix things up, let’s shuffle all of these cards together. Once that’s done, we can begin dealing the cards.

Let’s get started with the first deal. In this round, everyone will receive three cards. Then, we move on to the second deal, where each player gets four cards. This pattern continues for eleven rounds until each person has a total of thirteen cards. Any remaining cards are put in the center to create the draw pile. To start the game, we reveal the top card from the draw pile, which becomes the discard pile.

Now, it’s time to begin playing!

GAMEPLAY

The game starts with the player to the dealer’s left. From there, gameplay continues in a clockwise direction. On a player’s turn, they have two choices: they can draw a card from the draw pile or pick up the top card from the discard pile. After that, they must discard one card to end their turn.

When it’s my turn, I can play runs or books to get rid of more cards from my hand. Runs are made up of three or more cards that are the same suit. Books are made up of three or more cards that have the same value, regardless of the suit. Sometimes, I can use wild cards to replace other cards and create these combinations. Jokers are always wild cards, and each round, the wild card is the card that matches the number of cards dealt to each player.

When I run out of cards, the other players get one last turn. I can lay down all of my books and runs. The cards that are still left in my hand count as points against me. The only points that matter are the ones from the cards left in my hand. Then, the hand is over.

We keep playing until we’ve finished all eleven hands. After that, we add up the final points.

Scoring

Hey there! Want to know how scoring works in this game? Well, let me break it down for you:

Jacks – 11 points

Queens – 12 points

Kings – 13 points

Jokers – a whopping 50 points!

Wild Card – 20 points

Number Card – its face value

END OF GAME

So, what happens when the game is over? It’s pretty simple:

After playing 11 hands, the game is done. We add up all the points. And guess what? The player with the lowest number of points wins! Easy peasy!

So, let’s play and see who the champion will be!