15. Playing Cards - Lesser known Card Games

1. Bezique

I learnt this game from Rajeev. His grandparents picked it up during their travel to London aboard a ship during the 40s, when his Grandfather Dr O.P. Gupta was deputed to join the London School of Economics as faculty. When just the two of us are playing cards, say on a long train journey, we play bezique. People looking on get quite intrigued because it is a little known game here. So far, apart from Rajeev’s family only our friend Nisha, knew this game. Of course it was first made famous by Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's hero. Here are the rules as bullet points.

• >2 players play the game.

• > Bezique is either the Q of spades & J of diamond (if the trump is clubs or hearts) or Q of clubs & J of hearts (if the trump is spades or diamonds)

BEZIQUE

• > 64 cards of 2 packs, Ace through seven of each suit are used.

• >A set of 3 and 6 of spades and 3 and 6 of hearts each are used as counters. The black set as units of 10 and the red as units of 100.

COUNTERS

• >The players cut to deal. The one drawing the higher card deals.

• >8 cards are dealt in batches of 3-2-3 to each player. The next card is placed face up and indicates the trump. If the trump card is a 7, the dealer gets 10 points.

• >The non-dealer leads with any card from hand. The dealer can then play any card not necessarily following suit.

• >If the second player chooses to play a higher card or a trump he wins a trick. If 2 cards of the same rank are played, the trick goes to the first player.

• >The holder of a 7 of the trump can, at any point of the game when on lead, exchange it for the turn up trump card and score 10 points. The holder of the duplicate trump 7 can also score 10 points on declaring it.

• >The winner of a trick can declare, what are called melds (details in table below with points gained). Eg. 4 aces, Ks, Qs, Js or 10s. Pairs, sequence etc. A card once melded cannot be shown again in the same formation but can be used in a different one eg. a queen shown in a set of four can be shown again as a pair with a king or in a sequence of Ace, K, Q, J, 10 of the same suit.

• >The aces and tens called brisques, earn 10 points each, for the trick winner, the aces ranking higher than 10s.

• >The winner of the trick draws first from the deck or stock. The players hold 8 cards (including declared melds) in their hand at all times till the stock cards are exhausted.

• >After the stock is exhausted 8 more tricks are played.

• >The game can be played till a player wins 1000 points or more.

Seven of trumps turned up, played or declared	10
Winning last trick(before the final 8 tricks)	10
Common Marriage(king and queen of any plain suit) declared together	20
Royal Marriage(king and queen of the trumpsuit) declared together	40
Bezique(Q of spades & J of diamonds) or (Q of clubs & J of Hearts)	40
Double Bezique (both Qs & Js of the Bezique)	500
Four Jacks    (can make it one of each suit to increase difficulty level)	40
Four Queens (-dito-)	60
Four Kings  (-dito-)	80
Four Aces  (-dito-)	100
Sequence of ace, ten, K, Q, J of the trump suit	250
Brisques – aces and tens in the tricks won by either player are each	10

Starting a Game

Segregate the cards below seven along with jokers from 2 packs of playing cards. You can of course keep the score on a piece of paper or you can make Bezique counters using the 3s and 6s of spades and hearts to keep a count of 10s and 100s respectively.  Lightly shuffle the remaining 64 cards. Cut the deck to decide the dealer; the one with the higher card deals.

The Deal

The dealer deals 3 cards to his opponent then 3 to himself, 2 to his opponent and 2 to himself, lastly, 3 to the opponent and 3 to himself.  The next card after the deal is opened to determine the trump. The remaining deck called the ‘stock’ is placed in the centre with the trump card kept face up next to it. If the trump card happens to be a 7, the dealer gets 10 points.

The Game I

The players will each have 8 cards in their hand. The value of the cards from the highest to the lowest will be as follows – ace, 10, king, queen, jack, 9, 8, 7. The non-dealer will start the game, leading with any card. If the dealer plays a higher card or a trump he will win a trick otherwise the non-dealer takes the trick. The cards are taken by the winner and kept separately face-down, not to be used in this round other than to count the points won (aces & 10s) at the end of the game. If a player has a meld to declare he has to first win a trick. After winning a trick he will place his meld or combination face up on the table and collect the points for it, as shown in the table above. These cards will be part of his hand but will be visible to his opponent. He can use the cards in this meld in future combinations too with some exceptions, eg a Queen or King once shown married cannot be married again to the second Queen or King in the pack ( no, they cannot divorce and remarry!)

The winner of the trick leads the second round, picking a card from the stock and playing a card. The loser draws next and so on, even if no meld is declared.

The Game II

The second part of the game starts once the stock cards are over. All melds should have been declared before this stage. The last card goes to the winner of the trick and the loser gets to pick the open trump card. In this part the loser has to follow suit or else trump and only if both are not possible, he can play any card. The main focus in this part of the game is to get the maximum points by way of aces and tens. If one has no aces or tens or trumps to capture some of the opponent’s you have no further scope of gaining any points.

Now all that remains to be done is to count all the tens and aces in the cards that have been won by each player and accord 10 points for each.