OBJECTIVE OF OGÓREK: The objective of Ogórek is to not be eliminated.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 3 to 8 Players
MATERIALS: A standard 52 card deck, and a flat surface.
TYPE OF GAME: Trick-Taking Card Game
AUDIENCE: Adult
OVERVIEW OF OGÓREK
Ogórek is a trick-taking game playable by 3 to 8 players. It is related to the game Cucumber.
SETUP
To set up a player will be the dealer for the round. They will shuffle the deck and deal each player 6 cards facedown. The remaining cards are placed in a facedown pile near all players. The cards are ranked with Ace being the highest and 2 being the lowest rank of card. The full ranking is Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. The suit of the cards doesn’t matter in this game.
For the last trick, the Ace becomes the lowest ranked card.
Penalty Points
Cards have penalty points attached to them. Aces are worth 1 penalty point. Kings are worth 13, Queens are worth 12, and Jacks are worth 11. 10 through 2s are worth their numeric value in penalty points.
Players only score penalty points for playing the highest-ranked card in the final trick.
GAMEPLAY
Ogórek is played over a series of rounds and in these rounds, you will play 6 tricks. To start the game the player to the dealer’s left will play the first card of the trick. From then on, the winner of the trick will start the next one.
When playing a trick in Ogórek the player who starts the trick may play any card they would like. The remaining players must then play a card that is the same or higher rank than the highest-ranked card of the trick. If they cannot beat or equal the highest-ranked card, then they must play their lowest ranking card. The winner of the trick is the player to play the highest-ranked card or in the event of a tie for highest, the last to play the highest-ranked card.
For the final trick, all the above rules apply but the player who plays the highest-ranked card of the trick scores penalty points based on the card played. If there’s a tie for highest all tied players score the penalty points.
When a player reaches a penalty score of 50 points they are eliminated from the game.
END OF GAME
The game ends once there is only one player who is not eliminated.
VARIATIONS
There are two variations. The first deals with penalty points, and makes the elimination target score 21 instead of 50. There is also a version of the game where players may call Kontra.
For the kontra version, players will each have a chance after the deal to either call pass or kontra. Starting with the player to the left of the dealer, each player will have the chance to make the kontra call. If all players pass then the game is played as above, but if a player calls kontra the game scoring changes. When kontra is called the penalty score for all losers is doubled. If you were the player to call kontra, however, it is quadrupled. And if you are unfortunate enough to call kontra and lose with a king, you automatically lose the game.
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