Put (Card Game)

An old English tavern card game, castigated by 17th –century moralists as one of ill repute, it is so easy to lean and fun to play that it would be a pity to omit it from the core curriculum of card game learners. It is essentially a game of bluff rather than calculation.

Cards

52, ranking 3-2-A-K-Q-J-T-9-8-7-6-5-4 in each suit, with Three the highest card and Four the lowest.

Object

The game is won by the first player to score 5 points over as many deals as necessary, or to win a majority of the three tricks played in any deal.

Deal

The player drawing the highest Put card (Three high, Four low) deals first and the deal alternates. Shuffle thoroughly and deal three cards to each player, one at time.

Play

Tricks are played to unusual rules. Any card may be led, and the other player may also play any card: there is no need to follow suit and there are no trumps. The trick is taken by the higher card, and the winner of one trick leads to the next. If cards of equal rank are played e.g. two Threes, two Aces, or whatever, the trick is tied and belongs to neither player. In this case it is put to one side, and whoever led to it leads to the next.

Putting and throwing

Either player, when about to lead to a trick, may do one of three things:

* Throw his hand in, thus conceding the deal and 1 point to the opponent.

* Lead a card without saying anything. His opponent must then play.

* Say ‘Put’, which is short for ‘I put it to you that you should throw your cards in while you have the chance’. If the opponent follows this advice, the deal end and the putter scores 1 point. If not, putter lead and the other must play.

Score

The game is won outright, regardless of points scored, by the player who winds two tricks in a deal, or one rick if the other two are tied. If each player wins one trick and one trick it tied, the result is a draw by ‘trick and tie’ and there is no score for that deal. If neither wins outright, the winner is the first player to score 5 points for concessions.

Notes

It is obvious that neither player will reach 5 points, because as soon as he reaches 4 the other will have no incentive to concede. Having nothing to lose, he may as well play the hand out on the off-chance of winning outright. This is not necessarily a defect in the game, though there may be a defect (of omission) in the only original source from which all later accounts of the game derive. What it means, in effect, is that in the course of one game you have four chances of throwing your cards in without penalty the points are not a score so much as a way of keeping count of your used opportunities. Of course, you could agree that an outright win earns a double game or stake, and a win on points only a single, in which case they become a score rather that a count.

Variant

The game becomes more interesting if you shorten the pack to (say) 32 cards by stripping out all the lower ranks from Four to Nine. There is, indeed, an equivalent French game called le Truc-‘the Knack’ – which is played with a 32-card pack ranking 6-7-A-K-Q-J-T (yes, really?). The winning of two tricks, or one and two ties, scores 1 point. However, each player may offer, or threaten, to double the value of the game when about to play to a trick, allowing the other to throw his hand in to prevent the double from taking effect. The first to reach 12 points wins the game, and the first to win tow games wins the rubber.

References

David Parlett, Teach Yourself Card Games, ISBN 0-340-59204-4, Hodder & Stoughton, p. 27, 1994.