TRJÁMANN

Hey there! Let me introduce you to a cool card game called Trjámann. It’s a game you can play with three players and the objective is simple: score the most points to win. The game continues until one player reaches 10 points or more.

GETTING STARTED

Now, let’s talk about how to set up for a game of Trjámann. The first step is to take out all the twos from a regular deck of 52 playing cards. Don’t worry, we won’t be needing them! Once that’s done, give the remaining deck a good shuffle.

Next, keep the twos aside. These special cards will determine the trump suit for the game. Exciting, right?

Time to deal the cards! The dealer will give each player 16 cards, dividing them into sections of 4 cards each. After everyone has their hands, place the remaining 4 cards face down in the middle. We call these cards the Manni, and they’ll come into play later.

GO FOR IT

So, here’s the deal: once the cards are on the table, we gotta pick a trump. It’s called Trjámann, and the player sitting to the left of the dealer gets to call the shots. We all take turns choosing a contract to play. Gotta try ’em all at some point, because there are 12 rounds in total.

Now, let’s talk contracts. There are four of ’em: Nullo, Grand, Spades, and Other. Nullo is all about avoiding winning tricks, and there aren’t any trumps for that round. In Grand, it’s all about taking tricks, but still no trump suit. Spades is where you wanna win tricks, and the trump has gotta be spades. Finally, in Other, you’re aiming to win tricks too, but the player to the left of the dealer gets to choose the trump suit. They hold the power.

Oh, and one more thing: in some games, players aren’t allowed to choose spades for the Other contract. Gotta agree on that before we get started, okay?

GAMEPLAY

So, here’s the deal: once we determine who the Trump is (the player to the left of the dealer), you get to make a decision. You can either keep the hand you have or swap it with the Trjámann. If you decide to swap, you can get rid of some cards from your hand and draw new ones from the Manni. But remember, only you can make this swap – no one else can.

Once everyone’s done exchanging cards, it’s time to start the game. The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick. Now, you gotta try your best to play a card of the same suit as the one led, but if you don’t have any, you can play any card you want. To win a hand, you need to have the highest trump card, or if there are no trumps, the highest card of the suit that was led.

Now, pay attention to this: the winner of a hand gets to lead the next hand, and this keeps going until all the cards are played.

Okay, game over. Let’s tally up the scores.

In the game, we keep track of the score. At the end of each round, we count the points. Every player starts with 0 points. The points are based on how many tricks we win or avoid.

When playing Other, Spades, or Grand, we aim to win at least 4 tricks. The contracted player, however, must win 8 tricks. If we win more tricks than needed, we score 1 point for each extra trick. But if we win fewer tricks, we lose 1 point for each trick we’re short.

For Nullo, each player has a limit of 6 tricks. The contracted player’s limit is 4 tricks. If we win fewer tricks than our limit, we get 1 point for each trick we’re below. But if we win more tricks than our limit, we lose 1 point for each extra trick.

The game continues until one or more players reach 10 points. The player with the highest number of points is the winner.