Chief and Vice

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. The auction
5. Chief and Vice
6. Choosing trumps
7. The Chief's team
8. Playing the tricks
9. Scoring
10. Winning the game
11. Tips for beginners
12. Variants

Overview

Chief and Vice is a trick-taking game with an unusual auction. In a trick, everybody plays one card and the best card wins them all. Before the tricks, the players bid by laying cards from their hand face up on the table: whoever shows the most cards becomes the Chief, the runner-up the Vice. Both name a kind of trumps – a suit or a rank – and the Chief picks a partner. The Chief's team must then take enough points in its tricks to reach a goal; the more cards the Chief showed, the higher the goal and the bigger the bonus. Teams change every hand, and everyone also scores the points in their own tricks. The first player to 200 points wins.

• Players: 4–6 (best with 4 or 5).
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and paper and pencil (or the score pad).

Chief and Vice is our own adaptation for an ordinary deck, inspired by Mü from Mü & mehr (Doris Matthäus and Frank Nestel, 1995). It has not been playtested yet.

What differs from the original: the original has its own deck of 60 cards in five colours (0 to 9, with two 1s and two 7s in each). We use the four suits of a normal deck, so each player has a few cards fewer (13 instead of 15 with four players). The card points (Ace 0, 2–10 one point, J Q K two points) are our own choice, made so that a hand holds 60 points with four players, as in the original. Because every rank has exactly four cards, the original's extra bonus step for the doubled 1s and 7s is gone. With 5 or 6 players we keep the original's team goals, although the 2s we take out leave 2 or 4 points fewer in play. Three-player rules are not included. The auction, the trumps, the play and the scoring tables follow the classic rules.

The cards

Each suit ranks from high to low A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. The Ace is the highest card but is worth nothing.

With 4 players use all 52 cards (60 points). With 5 players take out the 2♣ and 2♠ (50 cards, 58 points). With 6 players take out all four 2s (48 cards, 56 points).

Setup

Choose a dealer. The dealer shuffles and deals all the cards one at a time, so everyone gets the same number: 13 each with 4 players, 10 with 5, 8 with 6. The deal passes to the left after each hand.

The auction

Starting with the dealer and going clockwise, each player in turn either passes or bids by taking one or more cards from their hand and laying them face up on the table in front of them. What counts is only the number of cards a player has laid out – their bid – not which cards they are.

• The one-card rule: you may lay out as many cards as you like, as long as your total afterwards is at most one card more than the highest total so far. So the dealer opens with at most one card; if they do, the next player may lay out up to two; and a player who already has the highest total may add only one.
• You don't have to raise. You may lay out fewer cards, to stay in the auction or to show your partner-to-be what you have (an underbid), or match the highest total.
• A player who has passed may bid again on a later turn.
• The auction ends when all players have passed one after another with no card laid out in between.

The cards you laid out stay face up in front of you. They still belong to your hand: you will play them in the tricks, just like the cards in your hand.

Example: Anna deals and opens with the Q♥. Ben passes. Carla lays out the 9♣ (she stays in without raising). Dan may go up to two cards and lays out the K♠ and K♦. Next turn Anna adds the J♥ (2 cards), Ben lays out the A♣ (1 card), Carla passes, and Dan, who leads with two, adds the K♥ (3 cards). Now Anna, Ben, Carla and Dan all pass in turn, and the auction is over. Dan has shown three cards, Anna two, Ben and Carla one each.

Chief and Vice

• Chief: the player who laid out more cards than anyone else. In the example, that is Dan.
• Stalemate: if two or more players are tied for the most cards, there is no Chief and the hand ends at once. Each of the tied players scores 5 points per card they laid out – except the one of them who laid out cards last, who loses 10 points per card. The others score nothing. Then the next dealer deals a new hand. If everybody passes in the very first round, it is a stalemate without any points.
• Vice: the player with the second most cards. If several are tied, the one with the highest-ranking card among their laid-out cards becomes Vice; if that is equal too, compare the second-highest, and so on. If it still can't be decided, or if the Chief was the only player to bid, there is no Vice. In the example, Anna is the Vice.

Choosing trumps

Trumps are cards that beat all other cards. In Chief and Vice there are two kinds, and each is chosen from the cards a player laid out:

1. First the Vice names either a suit (e.g. "hearts") or a rank (e.g. "Kings") of which they have laid out at least one card. The Vice must choose.
2. Then the Chief names a different suit or rank from their own laid-out cards – or no trumps, in which case only the Vice's trumps count. The Chief's trumps always rank above the Vice's; say it out loud, e.g. "Kings over hearts".

If there is no Vice, only the Chief's choice counts (and "no trumps" means a hand without trumps).

How trumps rank, from the top:

1. A double trump – a card that belongs to both choices (with "Kings over hearts", the K♥). If the Chief names a rank and the Vice a suit, or the other way round, there is exactly one double trump.
2. The Chief's trumps.
3. The Vice's trumps.

Within a suit, cards rank as usual (A high, 2 low). Cards of the same rank that are both trumps of the same level are equal: among equal cards, the one played first wins. A card that is a trump because of its rank no longer belongs to its suit – with "Kings over hearts", the K♠ is a trump, not a spade.

Example: Anna (Vice) laid out hearts and chooses hearts. Dan (Chief) laid out three Kings and chooses Kings: "Kings over hearts". The K♥ is the highest card. Then come the K♠, K♦ and K♣ (equal to each other – the first one played wins), then A♥ Q♥ J♥ 10♥ … 2♥.

The Chief's team

The Chief now chooses a partner from the other players – anyone except the Vice. The laid-out cards help to see who has a strong hand. Chief and partner form the Chief's team; everyone else plays against them, together with the Vice.

The team needs a certain number of card points in its tricks – the team goal. It depends on how many cards the Chief laid out:

In the example, Dan laid out 3 cards with four players, so his team needs 34 points. He chooses Carla as his partner.

Playing the tricks

• The Chief leads (plays the first card of) the first trick. Then, clockwise, each player adds one card. You may play a card from your hand or one of your face-up cards on the table.
• Follow suit: if you have a card of the suit that was led, you must play one. Cards that are trumps by rank don't count as their suit, so you never have to play them to follow a suit.
• If a trump is led, you must play a trump if you have one – of either kind, the Chief's or the Vice's.
• If you can't follow, you may play any card, a trump or not.
• The highest trump wins the trick. If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led wins.
• The winner takes the cards face down and leads the next trick. The hand ends when all cards – in hands and on the table – have been played.

Example: With "Kings over hearts", Ben leads the 7♥ (a trump). Carla has no hearts left but still holds the K♣, a trump, so she must play it. Dan plays the K♦ and Anna the A♥. Carla's K♣ wins: it is a Chief's trump like Dan's K♦, and it was played first.

Scoring

1. Card points. Every player scores the points of the cards in the tricks they won themselves (A 0, 2–10 one each, J Q K two each).

2. The Chief's team. Add the card points of Chief and partner.

Goal reached: if the total is at least the team goal, Chief and partner each score a bonus. It depends on the number of cards the Chief laid out and on the Chief's trump choice:

The bonus is never more than 100.

Goal missed: find the largest number of cards whose goal the team did reach in the table (0 if they didn't even reach the goal for 1 card). The difference to the Chief's real number of cards is the shortfall. The Chief loses 10 points per card of shortfall, each opponent scores 5 points per card, and the partner gets neither.

Example: Dan (3 cards, Kings as trumps, goal 34) and Carla take 22 + 15 = 37 points. Goal reached: the bonus is 10 × (3 + 2) = 50 each. Dan scores 22 + 50 = 72, Carla 15 + 50 = 65, and Anna and Ben score only their card points.

Had they taken only 29 points, they would not even have reached the goal for 1 card (30), so the shortfall is 3 − 0 = 3. Dan would score 22 − 30, Carla just her card points, and Anna and Ben 15 each on top of theirs.

Winning the game

Write down every player's score after each hand and keep running totals. When one or more players reach 200 points at the end of a hand, the game ends and the highest total wins; if the top is tied, play one more hand. (A game to 200 takes about an hour.)

Tips for beginners

• Bid on length. You want to be Chief or Vice when you hold many cards of one suit or several of one rank – they become your trumps.
• Underbid to find a partner. Laying out one or two good cards without raising shows the likely Chief what you have, and makes you an attractive partner.
• Don't bluff the table. The laid-out cards are information; a Chief who picks you for your bid and finds nothing behind it will remember.
• Ranks are short trumps. A rank has only four cards, so a rank trump is harder to play but pays a bigger bonus.
• Mind the Aces. The Ace wins tricks but is worth nothing – the points are in the face cards.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Shorter game: play to 100 points.
• No stalemate (as in the 2024 new edition of the original): if several players tie for the most cards, the one who reached that number first becomes Chief; ties for Vice are broken the same way.