TOMATE: A Fun Spanish Card Game

Hey there! Have you ever heard of Tomate? It’s a cool trick-taking card game that’s similar to Bourre. I want to tell you all about it, so listen up!

The Cards and How to Play

In Tomate, we play with a deck of 40 cards. You can use a Spanish-suited deck, but a modified 52-card deck works just as well.

Now, let’s get to the exciting part: the gameplay! The goal of the game is to collect one, two, or even all three tricks in each round. Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

Well, here’s the twist. If you stay in the game but fail to win at least one trick, you’ll have to put some money into the pot. Yep, Tomate can be played for cash if you’re feeling lucky!

The best thing is, though, you don’t have to gamble to have a blast with this game. Tomate is fun and entertaining no matter what!

So, gather your friends, grab a deck of cards, and let the Tomate madness begin. May the best trick taker win! Good luck!

Alright, let’s get ready to play a game. Each of us will start with a certain number of chips. We’ll take out the 8’s, 9’s, and 10’s from the deck to make it interesting. In this game, the card ranking goes like this: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, Jack, Queen, King, 3, and Ace. The person who cuts the deck and gets the lowest card becomes the first dealer. After that, the dealer position moves to the left with each round.

Before we begin, let’s add three chips to the pot from the bank. This is called the Tomate payment.

The dealer shuffles the deck and deals three cards to each player. The remaining cards are placed face-down as the stock. To determine the trump for the round, we turn over the top card.

Here’s an interesting twist: before looking at their hand, the dealer can choose to declare “I’m taking it” and pick up the trump card. However, they have to exchange it with one card from their hand. The card they choose gets discarded face-down. If the dealer decides to go for this option, they have to play and cannot pass.

When we continue playing the card game, we all have to make a decision – will we keep going or stop? If we decide to stop, we have to get rid of our cards by placing them face down. But if we choose to keep playing, we have to win at least one round, or else we’ll have to face a penalty called the Tomate.

WHAT HAPPENS DURING THE GAME

Out of all the people still playing, the person on the left side of the one who’s dealing starts the round by playing a card. The other players have to match the suit of that card if they can. They have to either play a higher card of that suit or, if they can’t, a lower one. And if they can’t do that either, they have to use their trump card. But if they don’t have a trump card, they can play any card they want.

So here’s how it works: I start by playing a card. The next player has to do the same. But here’s the catch – if I play a trump card, the next player has to play a higher trump card if they can. If they can’t, they can play any card they want. The goal is to beat the highest card that has been played so far.

The trick is won by playing the highest card in the suit that was led or the highest ranking trump card. The player who wins the trick gets to lead the next one, and this goes on until all three tricks are completed.

After we finish a round, we pass the dealing to the left. We keep playing until one of us runs out of chips or until we agree to play a certain number of rounds.

Scoring

At the end of each round, if a player hasn’t captured at least one trick (or two if they picked up the trump card), they have to pay the Tomate penalty into the pot. In this case, we each have to pay three chips.

When I play this game, I split the pot into three equal parts – one for each trick. Winning the game means capturing one third of the chips for each trick I win. It’s a simple rule that keeps things fair.

Victory

To win, I need to have the most chips by the end of the game. The player with the highest number of chips is declared the winner. It’s all about collecting those chips and coming out on top!

To claim victory in this game, you must have more chips than anyone else once the game is over. Being the player with the most chips makes you the winner. So, keep collecting those chips to secure your triumph!