Horseshoes

Standard Game
Horseshoes is a trick taking card game designed to emphasize precision bidding (and clever play to back that up). It can be played with 3 to 6 players and uses a standard 52-card deck.

Deal
Deal an equal number of cards to each player. If there are cards left over (as there will be with 3, 5, or 6 players), set the leftover cards aside face down until the end of the hand.

Bid
The player to the left of the dealer bids first and also declares the trump suit or no-trump. The other players bid in clockwise order. You may not pass. Bids of zero are allowed. The dealer, who bids last, is under no obligation to make the total bids total the number of tricks to be played.

Play
The player to left of the first bidder (two seats to the left of the dealer) leads the first trick. Players add cards to the trick in a clockwise order until everyone has played a card. Players must follow suit, if possible. If they cannot follow suit, they may play any card.

The trick is won by the highest trump card played. If no one played trumps or the game is no-trump, the trick is won by the high card of the lead suit. Aces are considered high. The player who wins the trick leads the next trick.

Scoring
The player to the dealer's left begins scoring after the last trick is played. Each player scores their hand clockwise around the table.

The goal is finish the game with the fewest number of points.

Players who won exactly the number of tricks they bid take no points. But if everyone won the correct number of tricks, everyone instead takes 3 points.

Players who did not win exactly the tricks they bid take one point for every trick by which they missed their bid.

Examples:

• If you bid five but win only three tricks, you get two points.


• If you bid zero but win three tricks, you get three points.

The game continues with the deal passing to the left until one player accumulates a score of 13 or more points at the end of scoring. At this point, the game is over and the player with the fewest points wins. Of course, you can vary the length of the game by changing the number of points per game.

Optional Rules
The following rules are ideas for changing the standard game.

Partnerships
With four players, you may wish to play in two teams of two players. Teammates sit across from each other. The deal and bidding are unchanged. Teammates add their bids together and try to take a combined number of tricks equal to the bid. For example, if you bid five and your partner bids zero, you have to take five tricks between you. Unlike the game of Spades, the player who bid nil can take tricks without added penalty—only the total tricks among teammates matters.

With six players, you can play in three teams of two, or two teams of three.

Face-up Leftover Cards
Leave these face-up instead of face-down so that everyone can see what they are.

Jokers
Add one or more jokers to the deck. Jokers may be played on any trick and need not follow suit. If the joker is not the lead card, it can never win a trick. If a joker is lead as the first card to a trick, the following players may play any card and need not follow suit. Trumps are ignored and the person who lead the joker wins the trick.

Even Deal
So that there are no extra cards left after the deal and all players have an equal number of cards, adjust the deck as follows.

• 3 players: Add 2 Jokers. Total of 54 cards (18 per player)
• 5 players, Option 1: Add 3 Jokers. Total of 55 cards (11 per player)
• 5 players, Option 2: Remove all the 2s, then add 2 Jokers. Total of 50 cards (10 per player)
• 6 players: Add 2 Jokers. Total of 54 cards (9 per player)

Breaking Trump
The trump suit cannot be lead until a trump card has been played to a trick, unless the player with the lead has nothing but trump.

Aces
Aces may be high or low. When you play an ace to a trick, you declare whether it is high or low; if the ace is not trump and does not follow suit, this is not really necessary.

Stars
If you make your bid, you get a star. You can note this on the score pad, but it might be best to use tokens like poker chips instead.

If everyone makes their bids, no one receives any points and everyone gets a star. At the end of a scoring round, players may turn-in one of their stars to receive 0 points for that round.

The first player to get 5 stars wins, regardless of the score. If 2 or more players reach 5 stars, the one with the lowest score among them wins. The game can still end when someone reaches 13 points before someone gets 5 stars. In this case, the winner is the one with the lowest score, as per the standard rules. If someone gets 5 stars and someone reaches 13 points in the same hand, the winner is the one with the 5 stars (and the fewest points, in case of a tie).