Musta Maija

Musta Maija

Origin	Finland
Alternative name(s)	Black Maria
Type	Shedding-type
Players	3-6
Age range	Primarily for children, but interesting to adults, as well
Cards	52
Deck	Anglo-American
Play	Clockwise
Card rank (highest to lowest)	A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Musta Maija is a Finnish card game. It is primarily a children's game, but due to tactical possibilities, it can be enjoyed by adults as well.

The Rules

The game suits to 3-5 players, and it uses the standard deck of 52 cards. Ace is the highest. Everyone is dealt five cards, and the rest of the cards forms a face-down stock. The top card of the stock is placed face up under the stock, and it determines the trump suit. If it is spades, the card is returned into the middle of the stock, and a new card is turned to determine the trumps.

The queen of spades is a special card, and it is called Maija (Black Maria).

Whenever, during the play, a player has less than five cards in his hand and there are cards left in the stock, the player must take cards from the stock so that he has five cards.

In each turn the player in turn plays one or more cards from his hand onto the table with the following restrictions: The cards must all be of a same suit (in this purpose, Maija counts as a spade). Their number must not exceed the number of cards that the player left to the one in turn has in his hand. Playing cards onto the table is one action, and the player is not allowed to take cards from the stock in the middle of playing cards onto the table.

After that the player left to the player in turn tries to beat the cards on the table. A card can be beaten with a higher card of the same suit. A non-trump card can be beaten with any trump. A card can beat only one card. Musta Maija cannot be beaten, and it cannot beat any cards. Beating cards is one action, and the player is not allowed to take cards from the stock in the middle of beating.

Beaten cards, and the cards that were used to beat cards, are removed from the play.

If the player in the left beat all the cards on the table, it is his turn to play cards to the table. If the player could not or did not want to beat all the cards on the table, he must pick up the remaining cards into his hand, and the turn passes to the player left to him.

When a player gets rid of all his cards after the stock has exhausted, he is out and does not participate in the game. The last player to have cards in his hand (including Maija) is the loser.

References

• McLeod, John, ed., Mustamaija, Card Games Website
• www.korttipelit.net (Finnish)
• Kurki-Suonio, Ilmo, MMM Korttipelikirja, Otava, 1962
• Parlett, David (2004), "Mustamaija", The A–Z of card games (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, pp. 228f, ISBN 978-0-19-860870-7 .
• Parlett, David (2008), "Mustamaija", The Penguin Book of Card Games (3rd ed.), Penguin Books, pp. 473f, ISBN 978-0-14-103787-5 .