Dealing the Cards
All the players are dealt five cards in this order: the Dealer receives two cards and deals all the other players, in order from Elder to Younger, three cards. The Dealer then receives three cards and deals all the other players two. Then, in turn, from Elder to Younger, each player discards up to four cards into the discard pot, or may fold by discarding all five cards, and announces the number of discards to the Dealer, who replaces them from the top of the deck. The Dealer then discards and replaces, also announcing the number thrown away. Note: up to this point all cards have been dealt face down; each player is only aware of their own cards and, by way of the draw, ought to have a better hand than was originally dealt.
The First Round of Betting
The first round of betting has three distinct parts. In the first two parts, the Dealer names the amount that must be matched by the other players individually if they wish to stay in and places this amount in the Pot. In turn, from Elder to Younger, the players must either match the Dealer’s bid by placing the same amount in the Pot, or fold by placing their cards in the Discard. If a player matches the Dealer’s bid, they have the option of raising the Dealer by placing a named amount near the Pot on the player’s side. This process of raising does not affect the other players except for the Dealer who must match the collective raise or fold (see below for events following the folding of the Dealer). The matching of the collective raise by the Dealer and the placing of all the collective raises in the Pot closes that part of the betting.
In the third and, at this stage, final part, the betting is the same except that no raising may take place.
During the betting, the Dealer may make a zero bet, allowing all the other players to stay in or, in parts one and two, raise.
Buying Cards
The second set of four cards is now dealt in the following way: the Dealer receives four cards face down on the table. Then, in turn from Elder to Younger, each other player may buy up to four cards from the Dealer, placing an amount equal to the Stake into the Pot for each card bought. Bought cards are dealt face down. Buying stops at four bought cards, or earlier if the player wishes. The player is then dealt the balance up to four cards face up on the table. The cards dealt face up must remain on the table in front of the player.
The Next Stage of Betting
After receiving the four cards, the player is asked to make an extra bet, which again the Dealer alone must match later on. The player places the amount of the bet (which may be zero) on the face-up cards, or on the table in front of them. Once this has taken place for all players, the Dealer considers the extra bets made on the basis of any face-up cards and on the Dealer’s own ten cards which, of course, are unknown to the other players.
If the Dealer decides to match the total value of the extra bets made by placing the total amount in the Pot, then all the extra bets are also placed into the Pot and two last parts of betting take place in the same manner as for the First Stage of Betting described above.
If the extra bets are not matched, the Dealer may give the Dealership to the Elder without being required to fold. This is the only point in the game when the Dealership changes without the Dealer folding. Of course, the Dealer loses all privileges and becomes the new Younger.
Accepting the Dealership
To become the new Dealer, the Elder must match the other players’ collective extra bets, the Elder’s own extra bet (if there was one) being lost to the Post without reclaim. If the Elder is not prepared to match the bids, the process is repeated around the table until the Dealership is accepted, in which case events proceed as at the second paragraph of ‘The Second Stage of Bidding’, or the Dealership goes full circle until it returns to the original Dealer. If that happens, everyone folds, the Pot becomes the ante for the next round, the Dealer remains the Dealer and the next round begins from the beginning.
If the Dealer Folds
The Dealership is auctioned as follows: From Elder to Younger, the players who are still in are asked by the old Dealer if they wish to be the new Dealer. If the player wishes to be the new Dealer they must advance a sum equal to the Stake. If another player, when asked, also wishes to become the Dealer, then that player must match the existing bid and advance another amount equal to the Stake. This process continues around the table until all players except one decline to advance any more. Then all the failed bidders place their total bids into the pot as they decline and the remaining player places their total bid into the Pot and becomes the new Dealer.
If nobody wishes to be the new Dealer, all the players fold, the Pot becomes the ante for the next round, the old Dealer stays as Dealer and another round begins anew.
Showdown
The game having managed to get this far without utter confusion breaking out, the final part of the round, Showdown, takes place. Beginning with the Elder, the highest card grouping is declared and displayed on the table.
If the player to the left of the Elder cannot equal, beat or play some modifier that affects the Elder’s cards, that player’s cards are placed face up on the table, in their groupings if the player wishes, and the next player’s cards are compared.
If the Elder’s cards are beaten, then the Elder has the opportunity to play a modifier or rearrange the card groupings in the attempt to obtain a better arrangement. This process of comparison, consideration and rearrangement continues until at last the Dealer has been brought in. Finally, the player who holds the best cards wins the contents of the Pot. In the event of a tie, the player of greater seniority wins.
The round is then over, the cards and discards are all collected up and the winner becomes the Dealer for the next round.
Some Final Thoughts from the Game’s Reconstructor
1. The rules say that if the first player’s hand is beaten by the second, then the first player has the chance to reform their hand. Technically, the game could therefore go on for ever, with everyone reforming their hands, and it also takes out the ‘sucker’ element of the game – ‘I didn’t know a three-card flush beat a . . .’. However, as some modifiers (Fate, the Lady, the Sender of Eight, Death) do devalue hands, perhaps after these have been played the people whose hands were affected could have the chance to reform once.
2. If two combinations tie, an alternative solution would be for the one with fewer wild cards to be the loser. The problem with that would be that it takes away the Dealer’s prerogative to win tied hands, and the game is traditionally biased towards the Dealer (unless Granny Weatherwax is playing!)
3. Finally, as some special cards are declared before any hands are played, to prevent anyone from laying down their Lesser Onion in a hurry before anyone can play the ‘Fool’, there should be a round before the Showdown where the Dealer asks if any special cards (the Fool and, possibly, the Sender of Eight) are to be used.
Scoring
The groupings, in order of least scoring to highest scoring, are:
1. Bagel : This consists of two cards adding up to twenty – i.e.: PP, TP, TT, 9A. Fairly frequently more than one bagel is possible, giving a double bagel, triple bagel, lesser bagel (three sets plus one card from the Arcana) and finally great bagel (all nine cards used up; four sets plus one Arcana).
2. Two Card Onion : Two cards which add up to twenty-one – i.e.: TA, PA.
3. Broken Flush : This consists of at least three cards, adding up to at least sixteen, but not more than twenty-one. All except one of them is of the same suit.
4. Three Card Onion : Three cards which add up to twenty-one – e.g.: 47T, ATT.
5. Flush : As for the broken flush, but all cards must be of the same suit.
6. Four Card Onion : e.g.: 4557, A46T.
7. Broken Royal : A special case of the Three Card Onion: the cards 678 of any suit.
8. Five Card Onion : e.g.: 23466, 2234P.
9. Royal : Another special case of the Three Card Onion – three 7s.
10. Six Card Onion : e.g.: A23456, 222555.
J
. Wild Royal : Another special version of the Three Card Onion – three eights, in a round when they are wild (see note at The Null Eights Rule, below).
Q. Seven Card Onion : e.g.: AA22456, A223445. Note that there are no eight card onions, eight being a very unlucky number. It was an eight-card Onion that ‘Doc’ Henry Spanker was holding on the night when, according to the other players, he was caught in a freak shower of arrows.
K. Onion : A pontoon or blackjack: PA. However, this combination is only a Two Card Bagel unless there is more than one Onion, e.g.: KAQA. Thus we have Double Onion (two Onions), Triple Onion, Lesser Onion (three Onions plus two out of Death, the Ruler, the Lady or the Witch) and Greater Onion (four Onions plus Death). Greater Onion beats Lesser Onion, and so on. The Greater Onion is almost unbeatable (see below).
There is one more card combination: the nine card straight flush (e.g.: 23456789T). This combination is normally worthless, unless another player has a Great Onion, in which case the straight flush beats everybody. This is called Crippling Mr Onion.
Bagels
We asked Andrew how the Bagel fitted into the scoring: it seemed quite difficult to get some of the higher Bagels, but they rank below even a Two Card Onion. ‘Is that fair?’ we asked. ‘Well, Bagels aren’t completely useless,’ replied Andrew. ‘ In the event of a tie between two players – say they both have Double Onion and a Four Card Onion – a Bagel in the remaining two cards could break the tie.
‘There is also the Fool as a modifier (see below). Given that the Fool is itself a Bagel-forming card, the chances are good that if a player manages to collect upwards of seven or eight picture cards and tens, they’ll have the Fool as well, allowing them to play the Fool before Showdown and exchange the scoring of all Bagels and Onions.
‘Apart from that – well, they’re not very useful and the more you get, the more useless they’ll generally be.’
Now this simple list of thirteen winning card groupings is augmented by the use of modifiers:
The Modifiers
The Crippling Rule : A nine card straight flush may be used to cripple a Great Onion and hence win the game, if it is played after a Great Onion. A ten card straight flush overrides a nine card running flush in crippling a Great Onion and may also be used to cripple a Lesser Onion.
Once crippled, an Onion may not be retracted.
The Eights : The eights represent magic. Four eights, plus Death, the Lady, the Ruler and the Witch, are The Octavo and rank as a Lesser Onion. The eights can be used as eights or as zeros (Null Eights): the idea of using them as zeros is to ‘trump up’ a small onion into a slightly larger onion (e.g.: 3567 is a Four Card Onion. 35678 is a Five Card Onion). After an eight has been used as a zero, for the next round they are wild (can act as any, non-specialist, card from A to K – i.e.: they cannot be used as any of the special cards giving rise to later modifiers). Hence three eights can be a Wild Royal.
The Null Eights Rule
1. During a round in which eights are not wild (see 2), an eight may be used as if it had the value zero in order to trump up an Onion. In the event of a tie between two Onions with equal numbers of cards, the hand with the fewer ‘null’ eights wins.
2. In the round following a round in which a null eight has been played, eights are wild, acting as any regular card – see Wild Royal.
The Wild Crippling Rule : In a round in which eights are wild, to successfully cripple the relevant Onion, the straight flush must have at most the same number of wild cards as the Onion being crippled.
The Octavo Rule : When eights are wild, the card group consisting of four eights, Death, the Lady, the Ruler and the Witch can be considered as a Lesser Onion, but beats other Lesser Onions and may not be crippled like a Lesser Onion of any other composition.
The Lady’s Rule : If eights are not wild, the Lady may be declared, before or during Showdown, and replaced by the player’s choice of one of the next two cards from the deck, the chosen card taking up the place of the Lady: the other card goes into the discard pot. This move may not be rescinded.
When eights are wild, the Lady devalues one Ace, for every other card that would otherwise have been played as having the value of eleven, to value one only. This does not affect any Aces in a Great Onion, but may affect cards, in any other grouping, which, by being wild or any other means, would otherwise be played with value eleven.
By declaring, the card should be put on the table face up, and pointed out to the other players. Here, of course, the Lady may no longer be used in forming card groupings since a replacement card has been received (very useful for getting out of those Triple Bagels) but should be left near the player, on the table rather than in the discard pot. For the reason for this, read on . . .
The Rule of Fate
1. If the Lady has been declared and replaced, the Ruler card may also be declared and replaced in a like manner, in the process making all aces held by the player who used the Lady have a value of zero. Unlike null eights, however, zeroed aces cannot trump up Onions.
2. If eights are wild, the Ruler card may be declared so that eights immediately cease to be wild; a different player who has the Lady, whether visible, played or not, may then make his own eights wild again. The Ruler card may not be revoked once declared, and a single player may not use the Ruler card and the Lady in this way.
Great A’Tuin’s Rule : Declaring the World card allows a player to reduce the value of one of the player’s cards by eight points and to increase the value of a different card by eight points. The two affected cards must still have value between one and eleven inclusive. A two that is shifted up to value ten may be considered a picture card; a three shifted up to eleven as an ace of value eleven.
The Elephant’s Rule : Any four cards, each being either a nine or a ten or an eight when eight cards are wild, that are declared with the Queen of Elephants in one player’s hand, allow that player to shift as many points as are needed to generate a Double Onion. This Double Onion may be beaten by any other Double Onion. Any nines or tens in the player’s hand that are not involved in the shift may be considered as ones, not aces, and twos respectively.
(Since the five cards involved here have only been declared, they are, of course, still playable as cards in groups. Remember that a ten may not take the role of a picture card in an Onion – a shifted nine, eight, etc. is needed. With two nines, two tens and the Queen of Elephants, a possible shift is: add one each to the nines and tens – hence the Double Onion – and take four from the Queen of Elephants to be a six.)
The Sender of Eight’s Rule
1. When eights are not wild, a visible King of Octograms makes any aces belonging to a player who uses any eights become zeroed (see Fate’s Rule 1).
2. When eights are wild, the King of Octograms must be declared as soon as it is dealt and identified, zeroing all aces and disallowing eights from taking on value one or eleven.
Death’s Rule
1. When eights are not wild, a visible Death card makes one picture card in every player’s hand that has two or more picture cards have no part in forming a Double Onion.
2. When eights are wild, the visible Death card makes one picture card in every player’s hand that has two or more picture cards have no part in forming either a Double Onion or a Triple Onion.
The ‘killed’ picture card can still take part in anything else.
The Archchancellor’s Rule
1. Any player who plays the Wizard card may not also play an eight as having value eight.
2. If the Wizard card is declared at any time during the game, the Death card must also be declared if held. If the Wizard card is declared, then all the other players must also declare one previously undisclosed card each. If no one holds the Death card, then the Wizard card becomes wild for the rest of the round.
The Fool’s Rule : If, immediately before Showdown, the Fool card is declared, then, for the rest of the round, Bagels change places with Onions in the order of winning card groupings. That
is: the Two Card Onion and the Single Bagel change places, the Double, Triple and Lesser Onions are exchanged with the Double, Triple and Lesser Bagels respectively, and the Great Bagel becomes only beaten by, but may also be crippled like, the Great Onion, which remains at the top of the list.
(This now makes Bagels worth something, other than a tie-breaker. The Fool card, of course, can still take part in Bagels, and in any other card grouping, as usual.)
Endnotes
1. In fact, there’s very little included from ‘The Science of Discworld’ series – the books are borderline canonical – so characters unique to those books are not necessarily included.
2. Short story published in After the King – it is, technically, not Discworld, but it made it into the first Companion and has earned its right to stay.
3. Short story published in W. H. Smith’s Bookcase, now a collectors’ item.
4. Hence the phrase ‘daft as an alchemist’, for exactly the same reasons as those behind ‘mad as a hatter’, another profession that spent far too much time physically around mercury and mentally in orbit around Jupiter.
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