Lazy Bellboys Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• 1.1 Overview
  • Contents
  • Glossary
• 2.1 Game Preparation
• 2.2 About Location Rank
• 2.3 About Card Rank
• 3.1 Game Progress
• 3.2 Calling Card Rank
• 3.3 Trick-Taking
• 3.4 Must Follow
• 3.5 Winning the Trick
• 3.6 Collecting Cards
• 3.7 New Lead Player
• 3.8 End-of-Round Processing and Victory Judgement
• 3.9 End of Game and Victory, and the Next Round
• Optional Rules

1.1 Overview

"Lazy Bellboys" is a two-player trick-taking game.

The players are lazy bellboys. You are entrusted with managing the luggage of three groups of guests — "Family," "Celebrity," and "Hitman?" — who stay for seven nights and eight days. It would be wonderful to become a lazy bellboy who never carries any luggage at all! However, the unpredictable requests of guests and the volume of luggage will not go so smoothly. You will end up reluctantly carrying the bags in. Then comes the eighth day, checkout. Both of you want to avoid carrying out a large amount of luggage. But be careful! A guest who feels you have shown favouritism will order you to carry their luggage out. Manage the luggage while reading the guests' moods.

The cards you win represent the luggage you carry in and the luggage you carry out at the same time. Your goal is to win fewer cards than your opponent. You aim to win 2 victories before your opponent does.

Contents

• 15 play cards, 3 colours with 5 cards each (hereafter "cards")

Card breakdown:

• Rank 3 card: 1 each
• Suit-icon-only card: 1 each
• 1/2 card: 1 each
• ×2 card: 1 each
• X² (squared) card: 1 each

The symbols printed on a card are called card symbols.

Victory points must be tracked separately; please prepare a way to display them.

Glossary

Trick: Both players play one card face up in turn. Once the cards for the trick are all out, the winner of the trick is decided. The unit of this mini-game sequence is called a trick.

Round: During the game, each player performs 7 tricks. The unit of this full series of tricks is called a round.

2.1 Game Preparation

• Shuffle all the cards well and deal 7 cards face down to each player. Set aside the one remaining card face down, without checking its contents.

[Important]

• You must not hold any cards in hand until all 7 cards have been dealt.

• After dealing, fan out your cards and hold them. At this time, you may choose a right-opening or left-opening fan.

• Once fanned out, you must not change the order of the cards. You must not change the order of your hand throughout the round.

• Keep your hand hidden from your opponent, so that only you can see the faces.

• If either (or both) players' hands do not contain all three suits, redeal.

• Then, determine the lead player by any suitable method.

2.2 About Location Rank

The position of a card in your hand, counted from the left (which number card it is), is called its location rank. As the number of cards in your hand decreases, the maximum location rank decreases, and the last remaining card has location rank 1.

2.3 About Card Rank

• The rank of a played card is determined by the combination of the location rank and the card symbol chosen.

Card	Rank of the played card
Suit-icon-only card	Same as the location rank
1/2 card	Location rank ÷ 2 (rounded down)
×2 card	Location rank × 2
X² (squared) card	Square of the location rank

Example 1: If you play the "X² (squared)" card symbol that is the 5th card from the left, you have played a card of rank 25.

Example 2: If you play the suit-icon-only card that is the 4th card from the left, you have played a card of rank 4.

Example 3: If you play the "1/2" card symbol that is the 1st card from the left, you have played a card of rank 0 (rounded down).

[Note] A rank 3 card symbol always counts as a rank 3 card, regardless of location rank.

3.1 Game Progress

A round consists of 7 tricks. At the end of each round, a score is calculated and the winner of the game is judged. Repeat rounds until the victory condition is met.

3.2 Calling Card Rank

When you play a card, call out the rank determined in (2.3) aloud so that your opponent can hear it.

3.3 Trick-Taking

The lead player plays one card face up from their hand. The other player then plays a card following the "must follow" rule (3.4).

3.4 Must Follow

• In every trick, players are obligated to follow the lead colour according to the following rules.
• The colour of the card played by the lead player becomes the lead colour for this trick.
• If the opponent holds a card of the lead colour, they must play a card of the same colour.
• If the opponent does not hold a card of the lead colour, they play a card of any colour.

※ Do not forget to call out the rank when you play a card!

3.5 Winning the Trick

• Decide the winner of the trick.
• The player who plays the card with the higher rank wins the trick.
  • ※ Even if a player was unable to follow the lead colour, the trick is still decided by rank.
• If the same rank is played, the lead player wins the trick.

3.6 Collecting Cards

The player who wins a trick collects all the cards played in that trick. Collected cards are sorted by colour and placed face up in front of the player (take care not to mix them with the cards in hand). Stack them in an offset manner so that the number of cards collected and the card symbols on them can be seen.

3.7 New Lead Player

• The player who wins a trick becomes the new lead player and starts the next trick.
• The winner of the 7th (final) trick also collects the cards that were set aside in (2.1). Then the round's victory is judged.

3.8 End-of-Round Processing and Victory Judgement

• Both players check, by suit, the cards they collected in tricks. If a player collected all of the cards of one or two suits, place those cards of that suit together in front of the opponent.

• If a player collected all the cards of all three suits, leave them in front of that player.

• After this processing, count the number of cards placed in front of you. The player with fewer cards than the opponent wins the round and gains 1 victory point.

3.9 End of Game and Victory, and the Next Round

• When a player gains 2 victory points, the game ends and that player wins.
• If the end condition is not met, prepare as in (2.1) and proceed to the next round.
  • (The player who won the previous round becomes the lead player.)

Optional Rules

1. Long Game: The player who gains 3 victory points wins the game.

2. For the player who is behind on points: Immediately after the cards are dealt in (2.1), the player who is behind on points may look at the contents of the cards set aside face down.