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Game Rules for 56
This is a trick-taking+point based game. The game is played by either 6 or 8 players grouped two partnerships. The game is played in two stages. The first stage is a "bidding stage" where the partnerships bid competitively. The second stage is the "play stage" where the cards will be played out. The objective of each partnership is either to win a bid and then deliver on the bid made or to stop the opponent from delivering on the bid they made.
The highest bid determines the contract to be played for. The winning bidders partnership will be called the "proposing partnership" and the other partnership will be called the opposing partnership.
The lead player plays a card and the others are supposed to follow suit in a clock wise manner. The player who plays the "highest" card wins the trick/round for the partnership and also gets the opportunity to be the lead player for the next round. After all the tricks have been played out the total "points" from all the tricks won is computed. If the bidding team has scored the number of points equal or more than their bid, they will be declared winners. And the process continues.
The description here focuses on the 6 player version of the game. The game is played with a subset of the cards from two standard 52 deck cards. The allowed pips are A,9,10,J,Q,K of every suit. Thus the total cards is play is 6x4x2. (Additionally, the pips 7 and 8 can be added when there are 8 players) After shuffling, each player gets 8 cards. The value of each card is as follows;
- J 3 point
- 9 2 point
- A 1 point
- 10 1 point
- K 0 point
- Q 0 point
The cards are ordered as J>9>A>10>K>Q. Clearly this ordering is consistent with the points as well. The total points of all the 48 cards together is 7x4x2=56 and that is the name of the game. Crudely put, the objective of each partnership is to bid and win the maximum possible points with the hands they have.
During the bidding stage, the bid establishes one of the suits as trump ( or declares that there wont be any trump). Once the bidding is over and the game has entered the playing stage, the player on the right of the dealer opens with a card of his/her choice. Others are expected to follow suit if they are in possession of cards from that suit. If they do not have the same suit they can put any card of their choice. This is called ruffing.
The player on the right of the dealer starts bidding. This will also be the player to lead the first trick. The bidding progresses till all players agree on the bid. The following terms are the only allowable in bidding
- A number followed by a suit. eg. 28 Heart
- A suit followed by a number. eg. Hearts 35
- Plus followed by a number followed by a suit eg. Plus 2 hearts
- A number followed by no trump. eg. 30 NT
- A number followed by NS eg. 36NS
- Pass, Double, Redouble
- The first bid cannot be a pass.
- The existing bid must be a double (ignoring the pass bids) for a redouble to be bid.
- There are no bids after a redouble.
The bids of type 1 and 2 fixes as trump suit the suit indicated in the bid. The bids of type 3 and 4 fixes that there will not be any trump. The type 5 bid doesn't change the trump. Whatever was the trump fixed by before his/her bid remains in force. In bids of type 1,2,4 and 5, the value of the bid is the number indicated. In the bid of type 3, the value is the value of the previous bid incremented appropriately. In bid 6 the value remains unchanged.
The bidding process begins with value 28 and continues till all the players pass or the value 56 is reached. Every bid except type 6 bids must increment the value of the bid. When the bid process ends, an agreement on value and trump suit is reached. The partnership with the winning bid is supposed to reach at least the bid value using the trump established at the winning bid.
The contract points for winning the game is as follows
| Bid Value | Bidding Team Wins | Bidding Team Loses |
|---|---|---|
| 28-39 | 1 | 2 |
| 40-47 | 2 | 3 |
| 48-55 | 3 | 4 |
| 56 | 4 | 5 |
The contract points are doubled and redoubled if the bids were such.
Eg. If team A bids 48 Hearts and loses, Team B gets 4 contract points. If there was a double then Team B gets 8 points.
After the 6 player have played their cards, the winner of the trick is decided based on the following rule;
- If there are no trumps played, the highest card played in the lead players suit is considered the winner.
- If there are one or more trumps played, the highest card played in trump suit is considered the winner irrespective of the opening suit.
The winner of the trick gets to be the lead player for the next trick. After all the 8 tricks have been played out, the points in the tricks won by the partnerships are tallied to see if they have honoured their bid.