The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (112 page)

Winning six straight of is a lurch (jan) and earns two strokes. It is

possible for the outcome to be a no-score draw.

Rank of cards The pack consists of ‘live’ cards, which may be

played to tricks, and ‘duds’, which may not (in Swedish respectively

spelbara and odugliga korte). The top three live cards are cal ed

matadors (makdo-rar) and have individual names. Live cards rank

from high to low as fol ows. Those equal in face value beat one

another in the suit order shown (clubs highest):

- - - Jack Spit

-

- - Eight Dull

- -

- King Brus

Nines

Aces

-

Jacks

Sixes

The Sevens are winners, as explained below. Al others – Tens,

Queens, and unlisted Eights and Kings – are duds.

Play Eldest starts by laying, face up on the table, any Sevens he may

hold. Each of these counts by itself as a won trick. He then leads a

live card to the first trick. Each in turn thereafter must, if possible,

play a higher live card than any so far played, otherwise pass.

Whoever plays highest wins the trick, turns it face down, and leads

to the next. Before leading, he may similarly lay out Sevens,

counting each as a won trick. If a player on lead has no live card,

the turn passes to the left until somebody has one, which must then

be led.

Score Play ceases when one side has won six tricks, including any

declared Sevens. That side scores 1 stroke, or 2 for the lurch. If

neither has won six tricks when no live cards remain to be led, a

side with five tricks scores 1 stroke if one of its members holds K.

Game is six strokes.

Comment The ef ect of dud cards is to distribute playing hands of

unequal length, while camouflaging the number of live cards in

each player’s hand. Duds might as wel be discarded before play

begins, but this would spoil the fun. Certain cards other than

matadors also have individual names, of varying degrees of

formality and propriety. The 9 is commonly cal ed plågu, literal y

‘torment’, because it may force the play of a matador when its

holder would have preferred to hold it back til later. The A is

cal ed grodbal en, ‘frog’s scrotum’, which makes no apparent sense

at al .

Stýrivolt

4 players (2 × 2), 48 of 52 cards

The national card game of the Faeroe Islands has been played there

for over 200 years and probably originated in Denmark 100 years

before that. It is now severely in decline, but fortunately has been

wel documented. The fol owing is based on John McLeod’s

website description, which benefits from comments by Jogvan

Basrentsen, and on Anthony Smith’s translation of an article by

Basrentsen. Dr Smith also had the benefit of playing the game at

Torshavn in 1996.

Terminology The Faeroese word stikkar I render by the related

English word cognate ‘sticker’, in the archaic sense ‘slaughterer’.

Karnifl obviously derives from Karnöf el. The Nines of the chosen

suit are each cal ed ryssa, meaning ‘mare’; in fact, the 9 is cal ed

Hoygardsryssa, ‘hay-yard mare’. The so-cal ed ‘postmen’ (postar,

pavstar) represent a corruption of, or pun on, the word for ‘pope’.

Picturesque as these and other terms are, I employ them sparingly,

as the game has quite enough other complications to be get ing on

with.