These are trick-taking games in which the aim is to capture cards or avoiding capturing cards. It may be the quantity of cards captured that is important, or it may be that some cards are more valuable than others.
Bridge is the English pronunciation of "Biritch" (Russian Whist). The game grew from Whist, with variants known as Bridge, Bridge-Whist and Auction Bridge. The modern form of the game is Contract Bridge and dates from around 1925. Duplicate Contract Bridge is the variant most often found in competitions.
This category list sites that have as their primary focus, the game of Bridge, typically Contract Bridge and Duplicate.
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Five Hundred (500) is the national card game of Australia, though it was invented in the USA, and promoted by the US Playing Card Company, who copyrighted the rules in 1904. The Euchre-like game is called Five Hundred because the first team to reach at least 500 points wins.
Oh Hell! is also known by many other names, including Blackout, Elevator (l'Ascenseur in France), Oh Shit!, Bust and Up and Down the River (in Australia and New Zealand), Boerenbridge or 10 op en neer in the Netherlands.
From 3 to 7 people can play. The game is best when played with 4 to 6. A game of Oh Hell consists of a series of hands, played with a standard 52 card deck. In each hand players bid how many tricks they are going to take and get points at the end of the hand if they took exactly what they bid. Unlike other trick taking games, a player does not score if he takes more than what was bid.
The first round, players each start with one card. The next round each player is dealt two cards, and each successive hand size is increased by one, up to the maximum hand size. The maximum hand size is whatever can be dealt out evenly to all the players. Extra cards are set aside after each player has received the appropriate number of cards, and the top one is turned over to define the trump suit. Variants include starting with the maximum hand size and going down to one, starting with one, going up to the maximum, and then back down to one, and starting with the maximum, going down to one, and then back to the maximum.
Key characteristics: trick taking, exact bidding, variable hand size
Variables: number of hands and order of hand size variation, different scoring systems include losing points for missing the bid, disallowing an even bid (total of all players' bids not allowed to equal the number of tricks), deck variation from standard 52 cards, trump is either random or chosen by high bidder
Sites about the Sheepshead card game. Also known as Schafkopf and a close cousin of Skat, Sheepshead can be played by two to eight players using a thirty-two card deck. The game has unique rules for card rankings, point values, partners, and trump.
Spades is a card-capturing game in which spades are always trump. It is usually played as a partnership game with four players, but there are variations for two, three and six players.