President — rules card

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President 3 to 5 players · one 52-card pack plus both jokers — 54 cards THE IDEA • Get rid of every card. Where you finish decides what you are called next hand, and what you give away. • There is no score. Your title is the record. THE ORDER OF THE CARDS • Low to high: 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K A 2, and then the joker above everything. • The TWO is the highest ordinary card, not the lowest. This surprises everybody once. • Suit never decides anything. PLAYING • On an empty pile, lead any number of cards of the same rank — one, a pair, three, four. • After that everybody plays the SAME NUMBER of cards, of a higher rank — two sixes need two of something bigger. • Jokers are wild and can stand in for a rank. What a joker does ALONE depends on the ruleset — see Wild cards. WILD CARDS • Three rulesets in Settings, differing only in which card may ignore the count. The 2 is the top ordinary card in all three — that is the game, not a setting. • WILD 2s (ours, and the default): fewer 2s beat more of anything. One two beats four kings. • Twos against twos is a count contest — more of them wins. • WILD JOKER: twos match the count, so three kings need three twos. One joker still beats anything. • A lone joker sweeps the pile AT ONCE where it beats everything — nobody gets a turn to pass. Under Always Match it is only a single 2 and does not. • ALWAYS MATCH: everything matches the count and the joker is only a stand-in. A four of a kind is then very hard to answer — save one. PASSING • Passing puts you OUT FOR THE WHOLE PILE — no more turns until it is swept. • When everybody but the last player has passed, the pile is swept and that player leads. • Playing your LAST card does not sweep the pile. It stands, and the lead passes on to somebody else. TITLES AND THE EXCHANGE • Finishing order gives the titles: President, Vice-President, the middle, Vice-Loser, Loser. • Before every hand but the first, the Loser gives their TWO BEST cards to the President, who gives back any two. • At the same time the Vice-Loser gives the Vice-President their ONE best card, and gets any one card back. • With three players there are no Vices, so only the two-card swap happens. • The tribute is forced and the return is free. That is the whole point of the hierarchy. • The Loser deals and clears the table. • Whoever holds the 3♣ after the swap leads. The President can hand it over on purpose. • The Loser leads every hand after the first. Hand 1 follows the 3♣ — there is no Loser yet. WHERE THESE CAME FROM Pagat.com — President. A folk game older than any edition of it. Our house rules are marked. w.richardpringle.com/games/president/ ▲ FOLD ▼ ▲ FOLD ▼ ▲ FOLD ▼ FOLD & TEAR