The Penguin Book of Card Games: Everything You Need to Know to Play Over 250 Games (114 page)

If an unchosen suit is led, the trick is taken by the highest card

of that suit, unless it is beaten by a sticker or a high enough

beater. (It is not beaten by a leader.)

Play continues until one pair has won five tricks, and may then

stop. Winning the first five straight of is cal ed ‘keeping in’, or,

more distinctively, ‘[making] the vol’. A pair that makes the vol

more distinctively, ‘[making] the vol’. A pair that makes the vol

may elect to continue play, thereby undertaking to win al nine

tricks. This earns a bonus if successful; if not, it incurs both the loss

of the deal and an additional penalty.

Score Scores are recorded as strokes, crosses, and double crosses

(known as monks’ crosses). A cross is equivalent to three strokes,

and a double cross to two crosses. The scores are:

the game (five tricks)

1stroke

the vol (five straight off)

2 strokes

winning all nine

3strokes

the vol made by one partner 1 cross

all nine won by one partner 1 double cross

illegally taking the stock

1 cross to the opponents

Scores are kept on a chalk-board. Start by drawing a vertical line

with three shorter cross-lines. This is cal ed the chalk-up (a):

Record each stroke you win by erasing a bar from your side of

the vertical line (b, assuming yours is the left side). When you have

erased al three bars, you may draw a cross on your side of the

chalk-board, unless your opponents already have a cross on their

side, in which case you erase their cross instead of drawing yours.

Then erase the chalk-up (leaving only the crosses, if any) and draw

a new one.

If you earn more strokes than you have bars to erase, erase as

many as are left on this chalk-up, and erase the balance from the

next one.

The general principle is that only one partnership at a time may

have crosses on their side of the board. Upon earning a cross,

have crosses on their side of the board. Upon earning a cross,

therefore, you draw one only if your side (or neither side) has any

crosses, or erase one if only the other side has any.

If you make three strokes before your opponents have made one,

you score a double or monk’s cross, which looks like this: φ. As

before, you either draw it on your side, or erase it on their side.

Earning a single cross entitles you to erase one of their single

crosses, a double cross to erase one of their doubles. If you earn a

double and they have only singles, you may erase two of them. If

you earn a single and they have only a double, you may erase one

bar of it to make it a single. This is cal ed, in polite terminology,

‘gelding the monk’. It is supposed to be impolite to geld a monk

when it is possible to erase a single cross.

The first chalk-up is done by the first dealer, but, as chalking is

regarded as messy work, the task is subsequently delegated to

whichever side currently has no crosses. The actual scoring, though,

is done by the side entitled to it.

Alkort

4 players (2 × 2), 44 cards

This obvious descendant of Karnof el could have been described as

the national card game of Iceland until perhaps a century ago,

Icelanders having since become fiendish Bridge fanatics. The

fol owing is based on i>orarinn Guömundsson, SpUab⊘k AB

(Reykjavik, 1989).

Preliminaries Four payers sit ing crosswise in partnerships use a 44-

card pack lacking Tens and Fives. Al play goes to the left. Deal

nine each in batches of three. The last eight go face down on the

table and have no further part to play. The aim is to win five of the

nine tricks played, ideal y the first five straight of .

Rank of cards Cards rank from high to low as fol ows: