Centrifuge
Designed by Nathan Morse
Players 2-6
Length ?
Extra Material None

a trick-taking Decktet game for 2-6 players

General rules

Crown = 10. Aces are not in play.

Setup

(With two players, see two-player rules; with an even number of players, consider the partnership rules)
You will need something to keep score. Each player can score a maximum of 9 points per hand.
To start a hand:

  • Shuffle all the aces, then deal each player an ace face-down, which will indicate the player's target suit. Put the leftover aces aside, unseen.
  • Shuffle all the rest of the cards, then deal an equal number of cards to each player. (Any leftovers are set aside, unseen.)

Goal

Take as many cards as you can with your target suit on them. Each card is a point. Typically, you play to a target number of points, which, when met or exceeded, ends the game, and the game goes to the person with the single highest score. In a tie, keep playing additional hands until someone - not necessarily one of the tied players - wins.

Play

Player left of the dealer leads, and play goes clockwise. Subsequent players must follow one of the 1-2 led suits.
If 2-9 is led:

  • Cards played in the higher suit (the one closer to the number on the card) are positive; cards played in the lower suit are negative. A card played in both suits counts as both, and is thus worth 0. This means that the lead card is always worth 0, if it's a 2-9.
  • Off-suit cards (i.e. they don't match either suit) are worthless, as well.

If crown is led:

  • The crown's suit is the super-positive suit. This means any card with this suit is exclusively positive.
  • Every other suit is negative. This means that any card without the led suit is negative.

Evaluating the trick:

  • If the total for the cards is positive, then the highest card - even if it's an off-suit card - wins the trick. A tie is broken like this:
    1. A card with the positive suit wins. If there isn't one, then…
    2. A card with the negative suit wins. If there isn't one, then…
    3. The trick is a bust: No one wins it. Discard the trick's cards.
  • If the total for the cards is negative, then the lowest card - even if it's an off-suit card - wins the trick. A tie is broken like this:
    1. A card with the negative suit wins. If there isn't one, then…
    2. A card with the positive suit wins. If there isn't one, then…
    3. The trick is a bust: No one wins it. Discard the trick's cards.

Whoever wins the trick takes the cards from the trick, and keeps them face-down, on top of, but perpendicular to her ace. This person leads the next trick. In the event of a bust, the player who played the last card leads the trick.
Evaluating the hand:
Each player reveals her target suit (her ace), then counts up the number of cards she took bearing that suit. Each matching card taken counts as a point. After recording everyone's scores, start a new hand, unless someone has met your predetermined target score, of course.

Partnership rules

With an even number of players, you can play Centrifuge in pairs. One player in the pair will be positive; the other, negative. The positive player's points count as positive, so this player - like usual - wants to take as many cards in her target suit as she can. The negative player's points count as negative, though, so this player wants to avoid taking cards in his target suit.
Setup
The players sitting opposite one another constitute a team. One of the players on the team flips a coin. If it's heads, that player is the positive player on the team; tails, that player is the negative player. The polarity switches after each hand: The positive player becomes the negative player for the team, and vice versa.
Cancellation variant
With a proper lack of table talk, this can be a chaotic and surprising way to play in partnerships. Once the hand is finished, teams combine the cards they've taken, and then the players reveal their target suits like usual. The team's cards that bear the both the positive and negative suit for the team are canceled, and count for neither positive nor negative points. All other cards are evaluated as usual.

Two-player rules

You are playing a four-player partnership game, except that each player plays both roles of her own team. You may never look at more than one hand at a time. Your right hand is always positive. Your left hand is always negative. The play order is still "clockwise", assuming the players' hands are seated as follows:

P1L (-) P2R (+)
P2L (-) P1R (+)

Playing for Both Teams variant
The rules are the same as the normal two-player rules, except that your right hand (dexter) is your team's positive player, and your left hand (sinister) is your opponent's negative player. Now you want to win every trick you can with either hand!

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