Five-hundred

Five Hundred is a game of strategy and of luck. It’s a fairly old card game in which my grandmother taught to me. Not too many people play or even know about 500 anymore.

How to play the card game:

(This is a bit confusing to write down, so don’t get upset with me if it’s written a little bit confusing.)

………………………………………….Starting…………………………………………..
-First, you have to get four people who are willing to play the game.

-You must obtain a normal deck of cards and take out all the 2’s and 3’s, while leaving only 1 joker card in the deck. (Just set the 2’s, 3’s, and spare jokers to the side, you will not need them.)

-You then pass 10 cards to all four players and place the remaining 5 cards in the middle of the table (This group of 5 cards is called the kitty).

………………………………………….Bidding…………………………………………….
-The person to the left of the dealer starts off by bidding.

-This person may bid any of the following:
Quote:………………..6…….7……..8……..9……10
Hearts……|…100….200….300….400….500
Diamonds |…80…..180….280….380….480
Clubs……..|…60…..160….260….360….460
Spades…..|…40…..140….240….340….440
No-trump..|…120….220….320….420….520

Newly……….|……250
Open Newly..|……350
Double Newly|……450

-Bidding examples: Newly, 8 hearts, 7 clubs, no-trump, etc.

-Then the next person on the left bids. This person must bid something that will earn their team more points than the person bid before him.

-If you do not think that you can take a trick (Groups of 3 or 4 cards in the middle of the table), then you can simply pass.

-Once all four people have bid (having to make a bid that would give you a higher amount of points then the person before you), the person who bid the highest gets the kitty. They put the 5 cards into their hand and then put aside 5 cards that they do not want. These 5 cards are not in use until they are shuffled back into the deck at the beginning of the next round.

…………………………………………The game………………………………………….
-The game now begins!

-The person who took the kitty gets to play the first card in the first trick.

-All the people have to follow suit with the card that was led out.

-From here on, the game starts to vary depending on what the highest bid was. So, I am going to separate the next part into a few separate sections.

*******************Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades********************
-The rank of the cards from highest to lowest rank are as follows: Joker, The jack of the bid suit, the same color jack as the bid suit, (all the bid suit then all other suits in the following order) Ace, King, Queen, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and then 4.

-The person who led out in the first trick would have probably played a high ranking card within the suit that they specified (unless they have a run and then they may play any of the cards within that run even if it is a low ranking card).

-The objective of the person with the kitty is for him and his partner (the person sitting opposite him at the table) to take as many tricks as possible. They have to take the number of tricks that where specified in the fight to get the kitty. If they do not take that specified number of tricks, then they lose the specified number of points. (If they were at 0 points, then they now have negative points).

-The objective of the other team (the team without the kitty) is to try and take as many of the tricks as possible as well. They get 10 points for each trick that they take.

-A player who can not follow the led out suit, can play any card from their hand that they want. If someone plays a trump card (a card with the bid suit), then they can take the trick.

-If more then 1 trump cards are played, then the highest ranking trump card gets to take the trick.

-When each trick is over with, the person with the highest ranking card gets to take the trick. That team now has 1 trick point for that round. This player now gets to lead out with the first card for the next trick and all of the following players must (if possible) follow suit.

******************************No-Trump*****************************
-The rank of the cards from highest to lowest rank are as follows: Joker, Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and then 4.

-Playing no-trump is the same as playing with suits except for the fact that no suits are trump.

-So, the jacks are normally and not second and third highest in rank.

-While playing no-trump there is no trump suit that can get you out of a bind (or put you in one) if you get into one. So you can’t get a trick just because you don’t have the played suit and end up having a trump suit.

*******************************Newly*******************************
-The rank of the cards from highest to lowest rank are as follows: Joker, Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and then 4.

-Newly is exactly opposite from no-trump. Instead of the trying to take the tricks, you have to try not to take any tricks.

-Another difference between no-trump and newly is that the partner of the person who gets the kitty does not get to play. That partner has to sit out for that round.

-If the partner does not want to sit out, they can raise their partners bid to double newly.

-In double newly, all 4 players get to play.

-If double newly is the highest bid, then that person gets the kitty. They then pass 5 cards to their partner, who puts aside 2 cards and passed 3 cards back to you. You then have 3 extra cards that you have to set aside. So overall you will set aside 5 cards.(You get to chose cards from all the cards in your hand).

-In double newly, neither partner can take a trick or they lose points.

-In double newly, I recommend that you pass 2 suits to your partner while you keep the other 2 suits.

-Open newly is the same thing as newly, except that you have to set your cards on the table so that all the other players can see your cards.

…………………………………….Winning the Game…………………………………….
-To win the game, one of the teams must get 500 points or more.

-If you want to make the game shorter, you can change the amount of points in which a team must get to win the game.