OBJECT OF TROEVEN: The object of Troeven is to be the first team to reach a score of 0 to win.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 4 players
MATERIALS: 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 TROEVEN
Troeven 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 Troeven 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.
SETUP
The first dealer is chosen at random and passes clockwise for each new round. To modify a 52-card deck all cards 6 and lower are removed from the game. This will leave you with a 32-card deck.
The dealer will shuffle the deck and have the player to their right cut the deck. Then they will deal the player to their left a 4-card hand. This player will then pick a trump suit and it does not have to be a suit they hold. After trumps are chosen the deal continues with the dealer dealing all players a total of 8 cards to a hand.
Card Rankings and Values
The ranking of cards is traditional. Ace (high), King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, and 7(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.
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 7. The team that scores the most points in the round decreases their score by one, and 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 a paper is halved by drawing one long vertical line. Each side will be assigned to a team, and each team starts with 7 horizontal lines (or branches). When a team wins more points in a round, they add a ball to one of their lines to cancel it out, and If the trump caller’s team loses, they add a branch to their side.
END OF GAME
The first team to reach a score of 0, or cancel out all of their team’s branches, wins.
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