Trick or Bid
Trick or Bid Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
52 cards in 4 suits, each made up of the following values: 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Setup
Use the full 52-card deck for a 4-player game. For a 3-player game, remove one suit.
Shuffle the deck and deal 13 cards to each player. Players keep their cards secret and may look at and handle them in their hand.
How to Play
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick of a round. Then the winner of the last trick leads the first card of the next trick.
Trick or Bid is a game in which players must follow suit. This means that, following the first card played in the trick, players must play a card of the same suit if they are able to. If a player has no card of the same suit, they may play any card from their hand.
Tricks
Tricks are a type of mini-game that occurs 13 times in a round. Once each player has played a single card, all cards are judged to determine which card won the trick.
Tricks are won by the highest trump card in the trick. If no trump card was played, the highest card of the suit led by the first player wins the trick.
In case of a tie, the tied cards are ignored and the next-highest card wins the trick. For example, if two 3s of the same suit, a 1 and a 2 are played for a trick, the 2 will win the trick because the 3s cancel each other out.
If all cards are tied with another card played in the trick, or if none of the non-tied cards in a trick are trump or of the led suit, no player wins the trick. Set the cards aside, and the player who wins the next trick will win that trick and the trick with no winner. When no player wins a trick, continue playing with the same leader as the trick with no winner. If the last trick of a round has no winner, it is discarded.
Taking a Trick or a Bid
When a player wins a trick, they may add it to their score pile as a won trick.
Alternatively, when a player wins a trick, they may use it to make a bid by taking a single card from the trick that they did not play and discarding the rest of the cards. The single card is kept face up, and the number on the card is its bid, or the number of tricks the player is trying to win exactly for this round. Players may take only one bid card per round.
Declaring the Trump Suit
The suit of the first card taken as a bid card in a round becomes the trump suit for the round.
Scoring
Keep a running total of scores from round to round with pencil and paper or by other means.
If a player wins exactly the number of tricks of their bid, they score 3 points.
If a player wins a number of tricks that is 1 more or 1 less than their bid, they score 1 point. If a player wins a number of tricks that is 2 or more above or below their bid, they score 0 points. If a player did not take a bid card for the round, they score -1 point.
"Family" Scoring Variant
At the end of a round, players score 1 point for each trick they have won. In addition, if a player won exactly the number of tricks of their bid, they score a bonus of 4 points. If a player bid 0 and won 0 tricks, they score a 7-point bonus instead of 4.
Scoring 0 points: if a player does not take a bid card, or if they win more tricks than their bid, they are penalized by scoring 0 points for the round.
End of Game
Play a number of rounds equal to the number of players in the game, rotating the first player of each round so that each player leads once. Add up the scores, and the player with the highest score wins. In case of a tie for the highest number of points, the tied players share the victory.