gameteko

Barbu

Overview:

* 4 player: All 52 cards are used and each person gets 13 cards

* 5 player: remove 2 of clubs and 2 of diamonds and each person gets 10 cards

* The cards are ranked as Ace is high and 2 is low

* Barbu is made of 7 games (contracts) and each person will be the “declarer” or leader for each set of the 7 rounds (i.e. there will be a total of 28 rounds played for 4 players and a total of 35 rounds played for 5 players).

* After each hand is dealt (the person to the right of the declarer is the dealer), the declarer gets to pick which of the 7 contracts is selected. The declarer will be the leader for each of the 7 rounds until each contract is played. After the first trick is won for each contract, the trick winning will start the text trick of that contract.

* The person who sits to the left of the declarer will become the next declarer and the previous declarer becomes the dealer for the next set of 7 rounds.

* Seven Contracts: (6 are Trick Taking games and Dominoes is not a trick taking game). There are 2 positive contracts where people try to acquire positive points and 5 negative contracts where people attempt to avoid getting negative points.

(1) Trumps – Positive Contract: +5 per trick (total +50)

(2) Dominoes – Positive Contract: 1st = 45, 2nd = 25, 3rd = 10, 4th = 0, 5th = -6 (total +74)

(3) No Tricks – Negative Contract: -2 per trick (total -20)

(4) No Hearts – Negative Contract: -6 Ace of Hearts, -2 for all other Hearts (total -30)

(5) No Last Two – Negative Contract: Last Trick -20, Second to Last Trick -10 (total -30)

(6) No Queen – Negative Contract: -6 per Queen (total -24)

(7) No Barbu (No King of Hearts) – Negative Contract: -20 for King of Hearts (total -20)

* In the trick taking games, everyone must follow suit if they can; otherwise, they can play whatever card is in their hand. The highest card which follows suit wins the trick and will lead the next trick in that round.

(1) + Trumps: The declarer gets to decide trump. (a) If a player leads with a non-trump suit and they have that lead suit, they are not required to beat that non-trump suit. (b) If a player leads with a non-trump suit and the other players don’t have the (non-trump) lead suit, they must play the trump suit if it’s available in their hand. However, if they have no possibility of beating the trump suit and they possess a trump card, they are not required to play it if they cannot win. (c) If a player leads with the trump suit, players are required to beat the highest trump card played. (d) If a player leads with a non-trump suit and a trump suit has been played, the next player is required to beat the trump played if they do not have a card in the lead suit.

(2) + Dominoes: The declarer gets to choose a card and that’s the card that starts off the chain. If the declarer chooses “5” and plays a 5 or Hearts, the next player can either play a 4 of Hearts or a 6 of Hearts or any other 5 card. If you can play you must play and if you can’t play anything, your turn is skipped.

(3) - No Tricks: You don’t want to win any tricks

(4) - No Hearts: No one can lead the heart suit unless they have nothing left but Hearts. A player who has won hearts are required to place all Hearts won face up for the other players to see.

(5) - No Last Two: You don’t want to take the last two tricks as each one counts for negative points.

(6) - No Queen: You don’t want to win any Queens during this contract.

(7) – No Barbu: No one can lead the heart suit unless they have nothing left but Hearts. You are trying to avoid taking the King of Hearts.

Doubling Phase:

*This option starts with the player who sits to the left of the declarer after the contract has been chosen (after the Trump suit has been chosen for the Trumps contract and after the number has been chosen for Dominoes contract). Each player has one opportunity to double one, all, or none of the other players. If player chooses to double everyone, they would announce “maximum.”

* Doubling is basically making side-bets with other players. The objective is to double with people who are less likely to win that contract.

* Doubling is allowed with only the declarer during the 2 positive contracts (i.e Trumps and Dominoes) however, doubling may occur with anyone for the 5 negative contracts.

* Once the contract is over, the normal scores are recorded AND THEN the side bets are calculated. The players who chose to double others’ scores will either have the difference of their 2 scores added to the winner’s score or subtracted from the loser’s score. If Player A doubled on Player B and Player A scored 10 points and Player B scored 20 points; Player A would have the difference (-10 points) added to his score and Player B would have (+10 points) added to his score.

* Once a player has been doubled by another player, that player during their “double phase” may choose to redouble on the original person who doubled them. A player, including the declarer, always has an opportunity to redouble even if they have already passed through the doubling phase. When this happens the difference between the side-betters will be doubled (i.e. a score difference of 10 points will be + or – 20 points for each of the side betters).

* Declarer, who goes last during the doubling phase cannot double other players; however, they can redouble players who have doubled them in that contract.

* It is possible to acquire positive points during a negative contract if a player doubles or redoubles another player. If Player A doubled on Player B and Player A scored -10 points and Player B scored -20 points during a negative contract; Player A would have the difference (+10 points) added to his score and Player B would have (-10 points) added to his score.

* All players are required to double the declarer 2 times during the 7 contracts.

* Barbu should always be a net zero game (i.e. all the scores added together should equal zero).

Barbu (Simplified)

Overview:

The game is played over multiple rounds, which are played in the following order:

At 5 players, we remove the two black 2s, and at 3 we remove the 2 of clubs.

Each player deals the cards in turn, and the next player leads.

No Tricks:

The goal is (one might suspect) to do as few tricks as possible. At the end of the round, each player counts the number of tricks he has made and scores 5 points for each.

No Hearts:

The goal is to collect as few hearts as possible in its folds. Each heart card picked up is worth 5 points.

No Queens:

The goal is to avoid picking up checkers. Each queen is worth 20 points.

Barbu:

Avoid taking the king of hearts, which is worth 80 points.

Salad:

All rounds are played together: no tricks, hearts, queens or king of hearts should be taken. The points collected are then totaled.

More Tricks:

This is the only round where you have to pick up tricks. Each player can remove 5 points from his total per trick.

Neither First Nor Last:

Neither the first nor the last trick should be taken. Each of these tricks is worth 40 points.

Domino:

The goal is to get rid of all your cards, by completing sets on the table. The order of the cards is as follows: Ace/King/Queen/Jack/10/9/8/7/6/5/4/3/2.

The leading player places the card of his choice on the table. This map serves as the starting point for the first series.

The next player can:

If a player lays down an Ace, he has the right to play again (if he can).

The first player to lay down all their cards wins the round. The others continue to play until the 4 sets are complete.

With 5 players, the points scored are as follows:
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
-50

-25

 0

 +25

 +50

With 4 players, the points scored are as follows:
First
Second
Third
Fourth
 -50
-20
+20
+40 

With 3 players, the points scored are as follows:

First

Second

Third

 -40

0

+40 

There is no doubling. There is also a version given in which only the first five contracts are played, in a fixed sequence.

Game over:

At the end of the game, the player with the fewest points is the winner.

Choice of sleeves:

A variant consists in letting the player located after the dealer choose (each in turn gives, therefore each in turn chooses). In this case, it is the player located before the dealer who begins.

You can multiply by 2 the points scored by the player who chose the round (or halve the negative points).

Variant for many players:

With 6 players and more, you can use two decks of cards, which doubles the points in each round. When several players place the same card, the last one placed wins the trick. You can also add the king of hearts from a tarot deck, which is worth 160 points.

Barbu Playing Hints:

No Hearts and No King of Hearts are generally best bid on hands with many hearts. This is because the rules forbid the leading of hearts. A hand with long hearts will be short in the other suits, and will thus get more opportunities to discard.

In No King of Hearts, a player who holds the King, and is confident of not taking it herself, will be influenced by the doubling on where she dumps it. It can therefore be possible for a player with a very poor hand, who did not double, to cooperate with declarer in dumping the King on a player who did double. (This assumes that declarer holds the King.) One way of cooperating with declarer is by returning the suits which she leads.

To bid No Last Two, aces can be as valuable as twos. A very poor holding is 9 8 7 6: you can be confident that the other players will not lead this suit for you.

The total score for No Tricks is 30, but this is in effect the smallest contract, as the tricks tend to be spread around. It is therefore a suitable hand to keep to last, as playing it with an unsuitable hand is rarely a total disaster. In playing No Tricks, ingenious sacrifice plays (such as are skilful in ramsch and other negative games) are not appropriate. It is better to keep your head down and avoid each trick as it comes round.

No King of Hearts only scores 20, but is really a big hand. This is because the penalty of 20 all comes in one lump.

Trumps can sensibly be left to the last hand, as you can be sure of being dealt a hand with at least four trumps in it. Do not bid Trumps for the first hand of your seven unless you expect to win at least seven tricks. From a trump holding of e.g. A J 10 9 6 5 3 the lead of the jack can be effective: there is a good chance that this will force the play of both the queen and the king, because of the trump-overtaking rule.

In dominoes, aces and twos are liabilities. A "block" like 765 can be powerful, in a suit in which the 4 3 and 2 are not held. Holding the specified rank is not necessarily a good thing: with an ideal hand such as 568, 5689, 689, 689 the best choice of rank is the 7.

Over seven hands, declarer can expect the best score, closely followed by the player on her right. The player on declarer's left can expect the poorest score, as she must make her doubles before hearing those of the other players.

It is bad to leave a compulsory double to the last hand of a seven, unless this hand will be something small (No Tricks, or maybe No Queens). It is particularly bad to be obliged to double a positive contract.

In view of the advice in the previous paragraph... Suppose it is the sixth hand of the seven. Declarer chooses No Tricks, leaving Trumps for last. A player doubles declarer only. Declarer should recognize that this is a desperation double, and redouble it (if it really came from a good hand, the doubler would have doubled the other players as well).

If you have a hand which is very good for several contracts, it is best to choose one which will induce some doubles. For example, consider a hand which can guarantee taking no tricks, and has a heart void. If you bid No Last Two, say, probably no-one will double you. But if you bid No Hearts, you will likely get a double from an opponent: at least one of them must hold at least five hearts, which is normally a strong holding in this contract.