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Ruff and Honours, which may mean trump, is a trick-taking card game that is the predecessor to Whist. Ruff and Honours was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries where it was also known as Slamm. The game is also related to Ruffe and Trump. Ruff and Honours is believed to be the descendent of Triomphe or French Ruff, a French game. It may also be a descendent of Rofna. There is still some debate over how this game is played, a reconstruction is provided here, it is probably the way the game was played or really close to it.
For additional information about Ruff and Honours visit Pagat.com.
Ruff and Honours is a trick-taking card game where the objective of the game is to take more tricks then your opponent. Ruff and Honours is played by 4 players in 2 teams of 2. A standard deck of 52 cards is used going from high to low: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
The dealer is randomly selected at the beginning of the game. Twelve cards are dealt out to each of the 4 player.
The rest of the cards (4 cards) become a stock. The top card of the stock is turned up and the suit of this turned up card becomes trump. Whoever holds the ace of trump then gets all 4 cards of the stock, this player then discards 4 cards. If no one has the ace of trump then the dealer gets the stock and discards 4 cards.
At the start of the next hand, the player to the left of the dealer becomes the next dealer.
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick. They may lead any card they choose including trump. Play then moves to the left to the next player and they must follow suit, if the next player is not able to follow suit they are able to play any card they choose to play including trump.
At the end of the first trick the player who played the highest trump, or the player who played the highest card of the suit led if trump was not played, wins the trick. The winner of the trick is then able to lead any card they choose to lead to the next trick.
For each trick over 6 tricks that a team earns they earn 1-point.
At the end of each hand, the team who was dealt 3 of (AKQJ) Ace, King, Queen, and Jack of the trump suit earns 2 extra points. A team that was dealt 4 of (AKQJ) of the trump suit earns 4 extra points. Honours are added in after the normal scoring has already completed and they are not applied if a player has 8 points.
The first team to reach 9-Points wins.
Modified on 4/24/17 from Wikipedia
