Draft:Nineteen (card game)

Nineteen

Example trick in a four-player game.
Origin	United States
Type	Trick-taking
Players	2–6
Skills	Strategy
Cards	52
Deck	French
Rank (high→low)	A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
Play	Clockwise
Playing time	15 min.
Chance	Medium
Related games
Auction Forty-Fives

Nineteen is a trick-taking card game that originated in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, in the late aughts. It was developed as a simplified and shortened substitute to Auction Forty-Fives, a game popular throughout the Merrimack Valley of northeastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.

While the basic gameplay is very similar to Auction Forty-Fives, the simpler card ranking system, scorekeeping, and exclusion of certain rules make it a popular option among inexperienced players and children.

History

Nineteen and its predecessor, Auction Forty-Fives, are descendants of the Irish game, Twenty-five, which in turn is a descendant of the 17th century Scottish game, Maw. In the 1920s, French Canadian economic migrants who moved south into New Hampshire and Massachusetts introduced Auction Forty-fives, where it continues to be popular today.

Circa 2008, players from southern New Hampshire formalized simplified rules so they could share the game of Auction Forty-Fives with their young children and others more easily. Nineteen was the product of this effort and continues to be played as a modernized adaptation of the beloved card game.

Card ranks

All cards, whether trump or "off-suit", follow a traditional ace-high ranking system. Any card from the trump suit beats any card from an off-suit. In the absence of a trump card, the strongest card from the led off-suit wins the trick.

From strongest to weakest: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

Rules

Styles of play

There are four styles of play for Nineteen:

• Heads up: Two players, one on one.
• Three-way cut-throat: Three players, everyone for themself.
• Five-way cut-throat: Five players, everyone for themself.
• Partners/teams: Either four or six players (two teams of 2, or two teams of 3), with teammates sitting in every other position. Points are pooled towards the overall team score, and towards bid.

Dealing

Five cards are dealt from a standard 52-card deck to each player and three cards are dealt face down to a pile in the center known as the “kitty”. The dealing order moves one position clockwise at the start of each hand.

Bidding

Before a trump suit is declared, players bid based on the strength of their hand. Beginning with the player left of the dealer and moving clockwise, players bid 3, 4, 5, or 6 points based on how many points they think they can earn with their hand if they get to call the trump suit. If no one bids, choosing instead to pass, the dealer automatically bids 3 points and play resumes as normal. When this happens, the dealer is said to have been “bagged”.

Discarding and replenishing

The player who wins the bid announces the trump suit. After trump is called, the bidder adds the kitty to their hand. Players then discard any unwanted cards (usually all off-suit cards) face down. If it is a six-player game, each player must keep a minimum of two cards to ensure cards do not run out. In a five-player game they must keep at least one card. The bidder may not keep more than five cards.

In the same order as the original deal and using the remaining deck, the dealer replenishes each player's hand so that all players have five cards. If a player chooses to discard all five of their cards, the dealer will replenish their hand with “four and a flip” placing the fifth card face-up for all players to see.

Gameplay

The winning bidder plays first, beginning with any card they choose. The first card thrown is said to have been "led". In a clockwise fashion, all players must follow by playing a card that matches the suit of the led card if they have one. At any time, a player can “trump in” and play a trump-suited card, regardless of the suit of the led card. If a player does not have any cards in the led suit, they may play any card. After each player has played one card, the trick is retrieved by the player with the strongest played card. This player then leads the next trick. This continues until all five tricks are played.

Scoring

The trick with the strongest card of the hand (often the ace of trump) is the bonus trick and is worth 2 points. The remaining four tricks are worth 1 point each. There are 6 total points in each hand.

When points are counted at the end of the hand, the winning bidder adds their point total only if it equals or exceeds their bid. If they do not “make their bid" they instead subtract their bid from their score. This is known as being "set", or "shot”. The object for the players that did not win the bid, therefore, is to make as many points as possible while at the same time setting the bidder.

Winning the game

Points are added from hand to hand until a player or team reaches 19 and wins. Winning the game is referred to as "going out" and a player who is within 6 points of 19 is said to be "on the green” or “on deck”. (This means they are theoretically one hand away from winning the game.) If multiple players go out on the same hand, the player who bid that hand wins. This is referred to as “bidder goes out”. In three-way cut-throat, if the two non-bidders go out on the same hand and the bidder does not, the player with the most points after the hand is finished wins. If these two players are tied after this hand, the game (and dealing order) continues as normal. The next player to have more points than both other players wins.

Optional Rules

Excluding card rankings and trick values, Nineteen is almost identical to Auction Forty-Fives apart from two rules. These rules are often added back into Nineteen while keeping the more familiar card ranking system.

Short suit

This rule makes the queen of hearts always trump (regardless of the called trump suit) and always the third strongest card in trump. For example, if the winning bidder called spades as trump, the trump card rankings would be as follows (from strongest to weakest):

A♠, K♠, Q♥, Q♠, J♠, 10♠, 9♠, 8♠, 7♠, 6♠, 5♠, 4♠, 3♠, 2♠

If the queen of hearts is led, all players must follow in trump. If a subsequent player does not have any trump, they must follow in hearts if they can. With this rule, hearts is called the “short suit” as it has only thirteen trump cards and the rest have fourteen. In Auction Forty-Fives, the ace of hearts is given this special ranking rather than the queen.

Reneging

This rule states that if a player has any of the three major cards, i.e. the ace of trump, king of trump, or queen of trump (queen of hearts if playing with the short suit rule), they do not have to follow the led trump card and may instead “renege” and play an off-suit. This is only allowed when the card you choose to renege on is stronger than the led card. For example, if trump is spades and the 10 of spades is led, a following player holding the king of spades does not need to play it. However, if the ace of spades were led, the following player's king is weaker than the led card and they cannot renege.