Voodoo, Virus & Bad Eggs and Other Trick-Capturing Card Games

Introduction

Greetings and welcome. In this book, you’ll find rules for 12 trick-capturing card games (one of those having 5 additional variations) meant to be played by a small group of players. Most of the games herein are for 2-4 players, but some may require 3 or allow up to 7. Familiarity with the game of Spades will be beneficial in understanding these rules. If you are unfamiliar with the rules for Spades, there are many resources available for learning them in depth. We will present herein a synopsis of the rules for Spades to create the foundation on which to base the rules for our games. The rules presented here are by no means the official rules for Spades.

These games use a standard deck of 52 playing cards and a table (any flat surface, really) on which to play the cards. For some games, one or two Jokers are also used, for a total of up to 54 cards. Unless specified otherwise, the Jokers are not used and should be removed from the deck before play.

While the game of Spades itself allows for partners, these games were primarily designed and tested for play by individual players competing against each other. A group may always try to adapt any of these rules for partners play if they so desire. The game of Shrimp especially lends itself to partners play.

We hope you enjoy these games. If you do, please let others know about them.

The Basic Game of Spades

If you already know how to play Spades, you may still want to read this synopsis of the rules, to know the assumptions we’re making and to become familiar with terms we’ll use throughout this book.

The objective of Spades is to be the first player to have a game score that meets or exceeds the goal for the game. The goal is often set at 500 points. Before the game begins, the players may agree on any number of points as the threshold for wining. A goal of 200 points is often used for a shorter game. One’s game score starts at 0 when the game begins.

When any player’s game score has reached the goal, the player with the highest score wins. Ties may be broken in whatever fashion the players agreed upon before the game began, but if no such agreement was made, the game continues until one player forges ahead of all others, at which time that player is declared the winner.

Play is broken into hands, each of which is broken into the stages of dealing, bidding, playing, and scoring.

Before the game starts, a player is chosen to be dealer for the first hand. As the game proceeds, the player seated to the previous dealer’s left becomes the dealer for the next hand.

In the dealing stage of the hand, the dealer shuffles the cards and then deals them to the players one at a time face down, starting with the player to their left and proceeding clockwise around the table, until each player has received thirteen cards.

Players take their cards in hand and may look at them if they wish, but read below about blind nil.

In a game with fewer than four players, set the undealt cards aside. They will not be involved in play until the cards are to be dealt again, at which time all 52 cards are shuffled and new hands are dealt to the players.

After the dealing comes the bidding. Starting with the player to the dealer’s left and proceeding clockwise around the table, each player bids on how many tricks they believe they will capture during the hand. Each player only bids once,