OBJECT OF KUJONG: The object of Kujong is to be the first team to reach a score of 0 to win.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 4 players
MATERIALS: One 24-card French-suited deck or a modified 52-card deck, a way to keep score, and a flat surface.
TYPE OF GAME: Trick-Taking Card Game
AUDIENCE: Adult
OVERVIEW OF KUJONG
Kujong is a trick-taking card game meant for 4 players split into two teams. Partners will sit opposite each other and can be chosen or determined randomly. The goal of Kujong is to decrease your score to 0 first. You do this by winning rounds. To win a round your team must score more points than your opponents.
While the original game has a complex scoring system and uses a French-suited deck, in the rules below, however, I will explain how to score and use a 52-card deck for ease of access to the game.
SETUP
The first dealer is chosen at random and passes clockwise for each new round. To modify a 52-card deck all cards 8 and lower are removed from the game.
The dealer will shuffle the deck and have the player to their right cut the deck. Then they will deal all players a 3-card hand. The player to the dealer’s left will then pick a trump suit based on their hand. After trumps are chosen the deal continues with the dealer dealing all players 3 additional cards
Card Rankings and Values
The ranking of cards is traditional. Ace (high), King, Queen, Jack, 10, and 9 (low). If using French cards, the ranking is 1 (high), Roi, Dame, Valet, 10, and 9 (low).
The cards also have values associated with them for scoring purposes. In the above order, they are valued at 4 points, 3 points, 2 points, and 1 point. This means there’s a possibility of 40 points for each round.
While playing with Mit it is possible for the ranking of the trump suit to change. The Mit is the queen of spades and before any cards are played to the first trick the holder may declare it. Declaring the Mit changes the rank of trump to Ace (high), Queen of spades, King, Queen, Jack, 10, and 9 (low). It is still only worth 2 points, however.
GAMEPLAY
The player to the dealer’s left will start the round and continue from them clockwise. The starting player may play any card and other players may either follow suit or play a trump if they have a card of the suit led. If they do not have a card of the suit led, they may play any card to the trick, this includes trumps.
Tricks are won by the highest-ranked trump if applicable, if not then the highest-ranked card of the suit led wins the trick. The winner of a trick takes the cards and places them in a face-down pile for scoring later, and will lead the next trick.
SCORING
Once all tricks have been won for the round scoring can start.
Each team starts with a score of 18. The team that scores the most points in the round decreases their score by one, and by 2 if they win all 6 tricks. If the Mit was declared, the winners of the round decrease their score by an extra point, but if the dealer’s team wins the round, the trump caller’s team must add a point to their score.
If both teams score an equal number of points in the round, there is no change to either team’s score.
To play with traditional scoring 9 strokes (or vertical lines) are drawn for each team. A stroke is crossed out for each point you would lose above. Once all lines are crossed out a tail is added to the end and it is considered a “cow” a team needs two cows to win. If both teams have a completed cow, then only a short cow (5 strokes) is needed to win the game.
END OF GAME
The first team to reach a score of 0 (or 4) twice is the winner. Alternatively, if using traditional scoring the first team to reach 2 completed cows wins.
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