All Fours (Seven Up)

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Basic terms
3. The four points
4. Setup
5. Begging
6. Playing the tricks
7. Scoring
8. Winning the game
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

All Fours is an old English trick-taking game, first described in 1674, and the ancestor of Pitch, Setback and Pedro. There is no bidding: a turned-up card proposes the trump suit, and the player next to the dealer may beg for a different one. In every deal there are just four points to win – High, Low, Jack and Game – and the first player or team to reach 7 points wins. In 19th-century America the game was called Seven Up or Old Sledge.

• Players: 2–4. Two or three play for themselves; four play in two teams of two, partners sitting opposite each other.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and paper and pencil (or seven chips per player or team).

Basic terms

• Trick: each player in turn plays one card face up to the middle. Whoever played the best card wins the trick and keeps it face down in front of them.
• Lead: play the first card of a trick. The winner of a trick leads to the next one.
• Follow suit: play a card of the same suit as the card that was led.
• Trumps: the cards of the trump suit. Any trump beats any card of another suit.

Cards rank from high to low: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2, in every suit.

The four points

"In play" means among the cards dealt to the players – most of the deck stays unused. So High is the Ace of trumps only if someone was dealt it; otherwise the King, and so on. High and Low can't be lost: they belong to whoever held them. If only one trump was dealt, its holder scores both High and Low. If nobody was dealt the Jack of trumps, nobody scores Jack.

For Game, count these cards of all suits in your tricks:

Other cards count nothing. If there is a tie for Game with two or four players, the point goes to the dealer's opponent(s). With three players: if the two non-dealers tie, nobody scores it; if the dealer ties with another player, that player scores it.

Setup

1. Pick a first dealer, for example by drawing cards. Deal and play go clockwise; after each deal the next player to the left deals.
2. The dealer shuffles, the player to their right cuts, and the dealer deals 6 cards to each player, 3 at a time.
3. The dealer turns the next card face up. Its suit is the proposed trump suit. The card stays on the table and belongs to no one – nobody takes it into their hand.
4. Jack turned up: if this card is a Jack, the dealer (or the dealer's team) scores 1 point at once.

Begging

Only the player to the dealer's left decides:

• Stand: they accept the proposed trumps, and play begins.
• Beg: they ask for a different trump suit. The dealer now chooses:
• "Take it": keep the proposed trumps, and the begging player (or team) scores 1 point for the gift. With three players, both opponents of the dealer score the gift – but if the one who didn't beg needs only 1 point to win, the dealer may not give it and must run the cards.
• Run the cards: deal 3 more cards to each player, 3 at a time, and turn up the next card. If it is the same suit as before, deal another 3 each and turn again, until a new suit comes up. That suit is trumps.

If a Jack is turned up while running, the dealer scores the point only if it is the card that finally fixes trumps – not for a Jack of the rejected suit. If the deck runs out before a new suit comes up, the cards are bunched: throw them in, and the same dealer shuffles and deals again.

After running the cards, everyone discards face down until they have 6 cards again.

Example: Anna deals to Ben and turns up the 7♥. Ben has no hearts and begs. Anna has a strong heart hand, so she says "Take it" – Ben scores 1 for the gift and hearts are trumps. Had Anna run the cards instead and turned up the J♠, spades would be trumps and Anna would score 1 for the Jack.

Playing the tricks

The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick. After that, the winner of each trick leads.

• If you can follow suit, you must – or you may trump instead. Trumping is always allowed.
• Only if you have no card of the suit led may you play a card of another suit.
• The highest trump wins the trick. If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led wins.

Play all six tricks.

Scoring

After the last trick, score the points in this order: High, Low, Jack, Game. Each is worth 1 point, so there are at most 4 points per deal (plus a point for a turned-up Jack or a gift).

Example: Two players, clubs are trumps. Anna was dealt the K♣ and 4♣, Ben the 9♣ and J♣; no other clubs are in play. Anna scores High (the King) and Low (the 4). Anna wins the trick with Ben's J♣, so she also scores Jack. Ben's tricks hold two 10s, an Ace and a Queen: 26 card points against Anna's 11, so Ben scores Game. Anna 3, Ben 1.

Winning the game

The first player or team to reach 7 points wins – at once, even in the middle of the scoring. That's why the order matters: if both need one point, High comes before Low, Low before Jack, and Jack before Game.

Traditionally the score is kept with chips: everyone starts with 7 chips and puts one into the middle for each point; whoever gets rid of all their chips first wins.

Tips for beginners

• Count your Game points. 10s are worth more than all the face cards of their suit together – win them, and don't throw your own 10 away cheaply.
• Beg with a weak hand, especially without high trumps: a gift point for you, or a fresh chance with new trumps.
• As dealer, give the point if you're strong in the turned-up suit; run the cards if you're not.
• Lead a high trump to catch the Jack of trumps when you hold the Ace or King.

Variants

All optional – agree before you play.

• Longer game: play to 11 points instead of 7.
• Blind All Fours (Pitch): no card is turned up and there is no begging. The first card led by the player to the dealer's left fixes the trump suit. A tie for Game scores nothing. From this grew Setback, and later Pedro.
• Trinidad All Fours: the national card game of Trinidad and Tobago, played to 14 points, anticlockwise. A player whose Jack of trumps is captured by the other team gives them 3 points ("hang jack") instead of 1.