 |
|
| About | |
|---|---|
| Origin | German |
| Gameplay | |
| Type | Trick-taking |
| Players | 2 |
| Cards | 24 |
| Play | Clockwise |
| Card rank (highest to lowest) | A 10 K Q J 9 |
| Playing time | 15 min. |
| Random chance | Medium |
| Related games | |
| Marjapussi, Bezique, Pinochle | |
Sixty-six, said to have been invented in Paderborn in 1652,[1] but first recorded in 1718 under the name Mariagen-Spiel (German: “the marriage game”), is a two-player trick-taking card game still popular in Germany, and even more in Austria, known under the name Schnapsen (“booze”), where it is considered a national card game. In Hungary, it is called Snapszli, Snapszer or Hatvanhat (Hungarian: sixty-six).
Sixty-six uses a deck of 24 cards consisting of the 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace of each suit. 32-card decks (7-Ace) designed specifically for this and other popular games such as Skat are widely available in Europe. In this game, the 7 and 8 of such decks are used to keep score.
Contents |
History in America
Sixty six was widely played in the Polish American community in South Bend, Indiana, in the 50s and 60s.[citation needed] There were regular tournaments and "money games". The bidding was usually conducted in Polish. In the 70s and 80s, a more aggressive bidding style was developed in familial games known as the Kromkowski style..[citation needed] Members of the Kromkowski family worked out odds and circumstances favoring higher bidding strategies..[citation needed] The strategy involves, in part, understanding what is known as "the distribution" or "the card distribtion". What is in your hand and the bids made by other players, provide information to make guesses about what is in other hands. The process is remarkably similar to a hidden Markov model (HMM) which is a statistical model in which the system being modeled is assumed to be a Markov process with unknown parameters, and the challenge is to determine the hidden parameters (the other hands) from the observable parameters (your hand and the bids).
Rules
| Rank | A | 10 | K | Q | J | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Value | 11 | 10 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
Card values
The table shows the cards ranked from highest to lowest and their card point value once taken.
Many central European games use this valuation. The ranking is different from standard North American ranking in that the ten ranks high, i.e. it is the second highest card after the ace.
Deal
Dealer is determined by any method acceptable to both players. The deal then alternates between players. Each player is dealt six cards and the top card of the remaining deck is turned face-up to show the trump suit. The remaining stock is placed crosswise on the trump card.
Play
The non-dealer leads. A trick is taken by the highest card of the suit led or by the highest trump. Until the stock is gone, there is no obligation to follow suit or to trump. The trick is taken by the winner, turned face down, and should not be looked at again. The winner scores the value of the two cards in the trick, as shown on the table above. Players must remember how many points they have taken since their scores may not be recorded, and are not allowed to look back at previous tricks. Once the trick is played, the winner takes the top card of the stock to replenish his hand, then the loser does the same. The winner of the trick leads the next.
Trump nine
The holder of the lowest trump card, the nine, can exchange it for the turned up trump. This can be done only by a player who has won at least one trick while he has the lead. This exchange cannot be done in the middle of a trick. It must be done just before or after the players restock their hands, when no cards are in play.
Marriages
On his turn when he has the lead, a player may marry a Queen-King couple of the same suit by playing one and simultaneously showing the other. Regular marriages are worth 20 card points and trump marriages are worth 40. A marriage is usually announced in some way to the other player, often by saying the number of points made. The points do not count towards the player's total until he has taken at least one trick.
Stock depleted
Once the stock is gone, with the turned up trump taken by the loser of the sixth trick, the rules of play change to become more strict. Players now must follow suit and marriages can no longer be played.
Closing
Closing indicates that the closer has a good enough hand to reach the 66-point target under amended rules. It is indicated by flipping over the trump card, before or after taking cards to make the hands back up to 6 cards. The rules change and suit must be followed if possible. The stock is now "closed" and players do not replenish their hands, and there is no 10-point bonus for taking the last trick. The lead does not change to the closer. If the closer reaches 66 card-points first, he scores points in the usual way. If he fails to reach 66 card-points his opponent scores two points.
Declaring
When a player thinks that the points in the tricks he has taken and his marriages add up to 66 or more, he declares that he has enough to win. Play stops immediately, and his points are counted. If he does not have sixty-six, then the opponent gets 2 game points. If he does have sixty-six, then he gets from one to three game points.
- One game point if the opponent has 33 or more card points.
- Two game points if the opponent has less than 33 card points. This includes 0 points if she has at least one trick.
- Three game points if the opponent has no tricks at all
Winning
The first person to get 7 game points is the winner. These can be tracked by showing pips on a seven covered by a face-down card.
Variants
Cruce
Sixty-six, also called Cruce (Romanian: Cross), is a partnership game which uses a double 24-card pack ranking 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. A deck can be made with the cards 8 and below removed from a standard playing card deck. Black sixes and red fours are commonly used for scoring. The game is played by two, three or four teams of two. Team members sit across from each other.[2]
Scoring points
Each team gets a black 6 and a red 4, used for scoring. In Polish American communities of South Bend, IN, the game is played to 15, so a 7 and 8 are used for scoring. There are 30 points per suit, for a total of 120 points in the deck. Points are distributed amongst the cards as shown in the table.
In addition, points are awarded to players who have a marriage or meld. In order to get the points for the meld and marriage, the king or queen must be led (i.e. the first card played in the trick) and the other card must be in the same player's hand. It is not necessary to take the trick, just to lead. But the team may only count the meld if during the course of the hand they win at least one trick. The player must announce the marriage (as "40" or "20") when leading, otherwise the player does not receive the award.40 points are awarded for a meld/marriage in trump, 20 points are awarded for a meld in an off-suit.
Points are kept in 33-point increments. Score is kept up to 10 points. Although, in money games and among certain playing communities the game has always traditionally been played to 15 points.
Bidding
The play to the left of the dealer initiates bidding. Bidding is done based on how many points the player thinks they will make in the hand. Each player either bids greater than the previous bid or passes. Each player bids or passes only once. The player who has the highest bid leads. Trump is determined by the first card played. Each tick on the scoresheet is 33 points. Bids are not additive. If your partner bids 1 and you bid two, the bid for that hand is 2, not 3. Since bidding is based on number of points you want to take, use the following table:
- 1 - A bid of 1 is for 33 points - This can be fairly simple, since the player who gets the bid determines what trump is. If he has an Ace/Ten or Ace and two others in the same suit, a 1 bid may be safe. There are only 30 points per suit. If the player has a "Marriage", he can lead that for 40 points, so he is always safe to bid 1 with a marriage.
- 2 - A bid of 2 is for 66 points - This is slightly more than half the points in the deck. Rule-of-thumb - you should bid 2 when you have a Marriage, because you already have 40 (You only need 26 more). Chances are that your partner will give you those points to reach your 2 bid.
- 3 - A bid of 3 is for 99 points - This is tough, but with a trump marriage and strong trump, it is doable.
- 4 - A bid of 4 is for 132 points - Remember there are only 120 points in the deck, so this requires a meld to make it. Generally people don't bid 4.
- 5/"Moon", also known as "playing Alone" - The partner's hand is placed face down and the partner does not play. Play is only between the 3 remaining players.
The bidding difficulty describes pre-1970s money games. Since then, innovations were made using aggressive bidding, notable in South Bend, IN.[citation needed] This aggressive style of play was previously discouraged by money rules which penalized losing bids: "A dollar a point, and a dollar a set." Consequently, players were not able to work out the optimal odds and circumstances favoring a more aggressive bidding style which was allowed in family friendly games where younger players were free to push the boundaries without fear of losing money (or card room brawls.)
Play
After the players bid, the player who bid highest begins play. The first card led is automatically trump.
Players must follow suit. If a player has the ability to play higher, they must play higher. If a player does not have the led suit, but does have trump, they player must play trump. This can be a useful way of removing trump from your opponent while getting rid of low-point cards, i.e., the 9s. If the player do not have the led suit or trump, his partner is free to play any of the remaining cards.
Scoring
The team that bid highest must make their bid in order to score. Failure to do so results in a reduction of points. At the end of the hand, teams count up their points and add in the points of any called marriages. If the marriage wasn't led, it isn't scored.
For the opponents, for every 33 points, score one on the scorecards. For the bidding team, if they made their bid, score one on the scorecard for every 33 points. If they were set, remove the bid from their scorecard.
In close matches, the rule is "bidders out". Meaning that if both teams pass 15 on the last hand, the team that won the bid, is the winner.
It is important to note that there is no penalty in underbidding. If a player overbids, however, his partner is set to bid again. The opposing team gets points based on what they collect. If they collect 35 points, they make one on the scorecard.
Schnapser
The Austrian national two-hander variation of Sixty-six in which all the nines are removed for a 20 rather than a 24-card deck, and the hand size is reduced from six to five cards. This variation is considered a much tighter game than the 24-card version and is very popular in Austria, where they sell packs of 24 cards called "Schnapskarten"[3] specifically to play this game.
See also
References
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of Card Games, David Parlett, pg. 259, Oxford University Press (1996) ISBN 0-19-869173-4
- ^ William Brisbane Dick The modern pocket Hoyle: containing all the games of skill and chance pg. 173, Dick & Fitzgerald, NY (1868)
- ^ Spieleboutique, Shnapsen cards for sale
External links
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