MANILLEN PLUS

Manillen Plus is a cool card game for 3 or 6 players. The point of the game is to get 101 points before the other players do.

In a game with 3 players, you don’t need to worry about picking partners. But if you have 6 players, you’ll play on teams of 3. Make sure that no teammates sit next to each other!

SETUP

To make the deck, take out all the cards that are ranked 6 or lower. That leaves you with a deck of 32 cards to play with.

To decide who goes first, pick a random player and have them pass the dealer position to the left for each new game. The deck gets shuffled, and the player to the right of the dealer can cut the deck if they want.

Let me explain how the game works. First, the dealer gives each player a set of cards. If there are three players, each gets 10 cards. If there are six players, each gets 5 cards. Either way, there will be 2 cards left over that nobody uses in the game, but they will count towards the dealer’s score later.

If there are three players, the dealer plays on their own and the other two players team up against the dealer. If there are six players, the dealer’s partners shouldn’t look at their cards until the dealer has picked a trump suit.

Now, it’s the dealer’s turn to make a decision. They can look at their cards and select one of the four suits as the trump suit. They can also choose no-trumps, which doubles the score. In some games, the dealer can even call no trumps before looking at their cards to quadruple the score!

If you want to challenge your opponent, you can say, “I go along,” which will double the score. And if you’re confident in your team’s ability to win, you can call, “I go against,” which will double the score again.

Ranking and Values of the Cards

In this game, the highest-ranking card is the 10 (also known as Manille), followed by the Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 9, 8, and 7.

Each card has a value associated with it for scoring. 10s are worth 5 points, aces are worth 4 points, Kings are worth 3 points, Queens are worth 2 points, and Jacks are worth 1 point. All other cards have no point value.

Gameplay

Let’s get the game started! I’ll explain how it works. The player sitting to the left of the dealer goes first. They can choose any card from their hand to play. The other players must play a card of the same suit if they have one. If their opponent is winning the trick, they must try to beat them with a higher card if they can.

If you don’t have a card of the same suit, don’t worry! You can play a trump card instead. But remember, if you have a card of the same suit, you should play that instead of trumping. You can’t play a trump card that has a lower rank than any other card in play.

The player who plays the highest-ranking trump card, if there are any, wins the trick. If there are no trump cards in play, the trick is won by the highest-ranking card of the same suit as the card that was originally led. The player who wins the trick collects all the cards from that trick into their score pile and gets to start the next trick.

SCORING

Once I’ve played and won all the tricks, it’s time to score the points. I’ll add up the value of all the cards I’ve won. If my team scores more than 30 points, we’ll subtract 30 from our score and record the difference.

In a game with three players, things work a little differently. If the opponents of the dealer win, they each score the difference between their score and the dealer’s. In this version, each player keeps track of their own score.

If both teams score exactly 30 points, no points are earned during that round. However, the points will be doubled for the next round.

If my team manages to win all the tricks, our score will be doubled as well.

The End of the Game

The game will come to an end when a team or player reaches or goes over 101 points. They will be declared the winners.

You can also play this game in tournament style. Each game of 101 points won is called a “boam” or “tree”. Tournaments usually consist of best-of-three matches.

I’m Amber (They/Them), an Austin-based writer and gaming aficionado. I consider myself a gaming master, and I have a soft spot for dogs, plants, and D&D.