Rules for the card game "Horse"

horse-rules.md

The Rules to Horse

Horse is a Bid Euchre variant, having some similarities to 500

• similar to Euchre (Bauers if there is trump)
• deck has cards 9 and up, no jokers
• 24 cards with 4 players (i.e. 6 cards per player)

Bidding

• bid for # of tricks (up to 6) you will win if you get to choose trump
• bid winner declares trump (or that there is no trump) after winning the bid
• special bid: "Horse"
  • 6 tricks with a trump (i.e. cannot be no-trump, which is just "6")
  • opponents can double
    • this means that they are bidding Horse
    • if the double stands, opponents become the bid winners
  • original bidding team can redouble
  • bidder asks partner for up to 6 cards from their hand
  • bidder chooses the best 6 cards as their new hand
  • bidder returns unused cards to their partner, whop puts the hand face down
  • bidder plays alone against the two opponents
  • bidder plays first

Scoring

Making your bid

• 1 point per trick won
• if "Horse" was bid, 2 points per trick = 12 points
• a bid of 6 (i.e. 6 no-trump) = 6 points
• if redoubled, score multiplied by 4 = 48 points

Losing your bid

• opponents gain 1 point per trick they take
  • if this pushes their score over 50 they do not win the game
  • only a positive score from making a bid wins the game
• bidder gets -1 point per trick bid
  • -2 point per trick if Horse was bid = -12
  • -4 point per trick if Horse was redoubled = -48

Victory conditions

1. scoring 50 or more by winning a bid
   • scoring 50 or more by foiling a bid will not win
2. opponents go below -24

Bidding Conventions

• If you have only 1 jack and bad cards: pass
• 2 jacks: bid 2 — if partner has a jack they should bid Horse
• A bid of 3 can be a defensive bid to simply prevent a 2 bid by opponents