Instructions for 500 Card Game
- 1). Prepare the deck. Removed one Joker, the 3 and 2 of the red suits (hearts and diamonds) and the 4, 3 and 2 of the black suits (spades and clubs). The deck should consist of ace through 4 of the red suits, ace through 5 of the black suits and one joker for a total of 43 cards.
- 2). Select a dealer at random and have the dealer shuffle and deal the cards, starting to the left. Usually, the dealer should begin by dealing 3 to each player and one into the middle of the table to form the kitty, then 4 more to each player and 1 more to the kitty, and finally, 3 to each card player and one to the kitty. In total, each player will have 10 cards and there will be a pile of 3 cards in the middle. The players opposite each other are partners.
- 3). Bid the hand, beginning with the player to the dealer's left. A bidder may bid six or more and a suit for trump (e.g., six diamonds), indicating that he and his partner will take that many tricks with the requested suit as trump. Play continues to the left, and each player can either pass or make a higher bid. A higher bid must either have more tricks or contain a higher suit. The order of suits from lowest to highest is: spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts.
- 4). Continue the bidding until everyone has a chance to or pass. The winning bid sets the suit. Players may bid "misere" after a previous player has bid a seven. Misere is a bid to lose every trick playing without a partner. A player may also bid open miserse, which has a value between the ten of diamonds and the ten of hearts. In open misere, the player's partner drops out and the player plays with an open hand after the first trick.
- 5). Instruct the winning bidder to pick up the kitty and discard three cards. If the contractor holds the joker, he may also nominate what suit it belongs to. If the contractor opts not to nominate or doesn't own the joker, that card belongs to no suit and is simply the highest card in the pack.
- 6). The winning bidder leads in the suit of his choice. If he is playing misere or open misere, his partner drops out. Starting with the player to his left, each player plays in that suit. If a player does not have the suit played, he may play a card from another suit. If there are no trump, the highest card of the suit led wins the trick. If there are trump, the highest trump card wins
- 7). The winner of the trick leads the next hand. Play continues until all cards have been played.
- 8). Count the number of tricks each team took by adding the tricks of the partners together. If the bidding team took enough tricks to fulfill their bid, they get the number of points associated with that bid. If they did not take enough tricks, they lose the number of points associated with that bid. If they take all the tricks, they score a slam; get 250 points or the score associated with that bid, whichever is higher. The non-bidding team get 10 points for each trick taken. Follow the chart below for points per trick. The chart shows points for bidding 6, 7, 8, 9 and ten tricks in the various suits followed by points for misere and open misere.
Scores for bids of 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 tricks in order:
spades: 40, 140, 240, 340, 440
clubs: 60, 160, 260, 360, 460
diamonds: 80, 180, 280, 380, 480
hearts: 100, 200, 300, 400, 500
no trump: 120, 220, 320, 420, 520
misere: 250
open misere: 500 - 9). Add the score to the score of any previous hands. Rotate the deal to the left and play another hand if each team has less than 500 points total. If one team has 500 points or more, they have won.
