Learned another game this weekend: Tens.

Setup

You need enough decks (without Jokers) for all players to have 19 cards. Shuffle ’em up.

Each player grabs a pile of cards from the deck and makes 4 stacks in front of them, as well as a hand of cards. Each stack has one face-down card on the bottom and one face-up card on the top. The other 11 cards go in their hand. Anyone who grabbed exactly 19 cards, gets -10 points (this is good!) for this round. Any player that didn’t pull exactly 19 cards makes up the difference using the deck.

Play starts with whoever pulled closest to 19 cards, and goes clockwise. The first player is suggested to be whoever had closest to 19 cards.

Eligible Plays

Cards are played into a central pile. A player may play as many cards of a rank as they like, using a combination of their face-up cards and cards in their hand. They may alternatively play an uncovered 1 face down card, and, after seeing what it is, add as many matching face-up or hand cards as they like.

Results of a Play

Any time the count of cards of the current rank on the pile becomes 4 or more (e.g. five Jacks), or a Ten is played, the current player discards the entire pile and takes an additional turn.

If they played at the current rank or lower (and there are still less than 4 of that rank on top), play moves to the next player.

However, if they played a card higher than the current rank (other than a Ten), the player must take the whole pile into their hand and play another turn.

Ending the Round and Scoring

Once a player gets rid of all their cards (stacks and hand), play stops for the round. That player gets 0 points for the round, and everyone else is penalized for all of their remaining cards. Cards are scored by their rank value, with Aces being 1, Jack 11, Queen 12, King 13, and Tens 20. (Don’t forget the -10 for any player that pulled exactly 19 cards when setting up the round.)

Winning

Play more rounds, but one suggestion is to play until someone has hit 100 (ten tens).

Whoever has the fewest points at the end wins!


Have you played this (or something like it)? How did your version differ?


  1. because the face-up card on it has already been played ↩︎