Rook

Rook is a collection of card games that use a unique deck called the Rook deck. These cards were first introduced by Parker Brothers in 1906. Interestingly, it is believed that Rook cards were created to cater to the members of strict religious communities, particularly the Mennonites. These communities believed that regular playing cards were tools of the devil and prohibited their use. However, Rook cards provided an alternative that allowed them to enjoy card games without going against their beliefs. Although, there were still some who considered playing any cards to be sinful.

If you enjoy playing Rook, you might also want to give Bridge a try!

THE ROOK DECK

The Rook deck has a total of 57 cards in it. These cards are divided into four different suits, which are colored black, red, green, and yellow. Each suit has cards numbered from 1 (low) to 14 (high). There is also a special card called the “rook card” which is the 57th card in the deck. You can easily spot the rook card because it has a picture of a bird on it. The rook card is worth 20 points and is usually the most powerful card in trick-taking games.

When you buy a rook deck, it usually comes with a small booklet that explains how to play different games with the cards. Most of these games are point trick-taking games. If you want to learn more about trick-taking games or find links to different games, you can click here.

Now, let’s talk about a game called “Kentucky Rook” that you can play with rook cards. This game is not usually included in the typical rook game booklet.

Kentucky Rook is a super popular card game in Eastern Kentucky. It’s a game for four players, and you play in teams. We take out the twos, threes, and fours from the deck, so there are only 45 cards left (including the rook).

Let’s go over the card rankings. The number 1 card is the highest, followed by 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and finally 5 is the lowest.

Now, the rook card is the highest of them all. Keep that in mind!

Let’s talk about the card values. Each number 1 card is worth 15 points, a 14 card is worth 10 points, a 10 card is worth 10 points as well, and a 5 card is worth 5 points. The rook card is worth a whopping 20 points!

In each deal, there’s a total of 180 points up for grabs.

Now, let’s get into the deal.

Alright, let me explain how the game works. The dealer, who is randomly chosen, gives each player 10 cards. The cards are handed out face-down, one by one. Then, five cards are placed face-down in the center of the table – we call this the nest. Now, here’s the interesting part: after each of the first five rounds of dealing, the dealer will add one more card to the nest.

Now, let’s talk about the bidding.

After the cards have been dealt, it’s time for the players to enter the bidding phase. This is where things get exciting, because each player gets to declare trumps.

When we play a game called bid, we start with a number. The smallest number we can start with is 100. But we can also choose bigger numbers, as long as they’re multiples of five. The person sitting on the left side of the dealer gets to start the bidding, and then it goes around the circle, from left to right. When it’s your turn, you have two choices: you can make a bid, or you can pass. If you decide to make a bid, it has to be higher than the previous one. Once you pass, you can’t make a bid again if it comes back to you. We keep going like this until everyone except one person has passed. The person who made the highest bid, along with their partner, will try to earn at least the number of points they bid during the game. These points are based on the values we talked about earlier.

If all the players pass, the dealer has to make a bid of 100. They don’t have a choice in the matter.

When I win the bid, I get to choose the best cards for my hand, keeping them all to myself. I don’t show my hand to anyone else. Then, I have to get rid of 5 cards by placing them face-down in the center. Those cards will become the new nest, but I can’t put any cards with points in there.

Once I discard, it’s time to decide on the trump color. I get to make that call because I was the highest bidder.

Now let’s talk about trick-taking. The player to my left starts the first trick. We try to match the color of the card led if we can. But if we don’t have that color, we can play any card from our hand. There’s one special card, the rook, that is the most powerful trump card. When everyone has played a card, the winner of the trick is the player who played the highest trump or the highest ranking card from the led suit.

The winner of the last trick gets to start the next one.

When all the tricks have been played, we need to tally up the points from the cards we’ve won. If my team’s tricks are equal to or more than our bid, we score points based on the value of the cards we’ve taken. However, if we don’t meet our bid, we don’t get any points for the cards we’ve taken. Instead, we have to subtract our total from our overall score. The team that didn’t make a bid gets points equal to the value of the cards they’ve earned.

The game ends as soon as a team reaches 500 or more points.

The game ends as soon as a team reaches 500 or more points.