Tricky Dick

This is named after an unflattering name for Richard Nixon. There are 3 reasons for the name. One it’s a different kind of trick-taking game, second a gaming e-magazine complained about my sometimes conservative humor, so I’m making up for it here. And I would mention another ex-president who that applies to more, except, I’d be violating my language policy, so those who know this applies to can think about it in their head, but publicly, it’s a game named after Richard Nixon.

Object: This is the first game that can be played cooperatively or competitively. If played cooperatively, the object is to get the highest group score. However, if played competitively, the object is to get the highest score among the players. If anyone thinks of a good way to combine the two, like the video game MULE, or the game show The Weakest Link, where you mix cooperative and competitive play, using these rules, I’d like to hear them.

Players: 4 players, all either working individually, or as one team.

Set up: Use the Squares deck, using no blacks, blobs, and question marks, and no jokers. There should be 64 cards.

1. Deal out 16 cards to each of 4 players.

2. The first trick is determined by each person drawing one card from their right hand neighbor, that neighbor’s card is the neighbor’s first card to the first trick.

3. Winning the tricks.

3a. The first trick is won by the highest number.
3b. If tied, member of the plurality color wins As between a 2-2 tie or a 4 way tie, the highest color wins, with red, yellow, green, and blue, being 1,2,3, and 4 respectively.
3c. if still tied, then the suit are Square, Triangle, Heart, and Circle, from highest to lowest.

4. Scoring: White chips are positive scoring chips, colored are negative. You can only hold one color, so negative scoring while you hold white chip means returning to the bank white chips, and scoring positively while holding colored chips means turning in colored chips to the bank. For every CIRCLE won, score + 1 chip. For every SQUARE won, score -1 chip. The people who score for the trick are the trick winner, and anyone else who laid the same color as the winner.

5. The winner of the previous trick leads the next card. You can play any card, buy remember, you must either match your previous lay on the last trick in one variable, or it’s considered -1 point for each instance. The lay is still legal. Also there is no requirement to match if possible in your hand, however the penalty applies always, even if you had no other play, so manage your cards well. Other people follow with any other card, but must match one variable to avoid the penalty. When the fourth player in turn lays, use the rules above to determine a winner. Keep following rule 5 until all players run out of cards.

6. If playing multiple games, rotate deal to the left. This starts a new hand.

7. In a cooperative game, the score is the total score of all 4 players,divided by the number of hands played for a team average. If competitive, the most after a fixed number of hands wins.