Maw

Suit	Order
♥ trumps	5 A J K Q 10 … 6 4 3 2
♦ trumps	5 A♥ A J K Q 10 … 6 4 3 2
♣ ♠ trumps	5 A♥ A J K Q 2 3 4 6 … 10
♥ ♦ plain	K Q J 10 … 2 A
♣ ♠ plain	K Q J A 2 … 10

Full rules

Overview
The cards
Setup
Fiving
Robbing
Playing the tricks
Scoring
Winning the game
Tips for beginners
Variants

Overview

Maw was the great card game of Scotland and England around 1600 and the favourite of King James VI and I. Two players get five cards each and play five tricks; whoever wins three or more wins the game. Its famous feature survives in Ireland's Forty-Fives to this day: the five of trumps, the "five fingers", is the best card of all, and the Ace of Hearts is always a trump.

No complete rules of Maw have survived – only a list of penalties from the royal court (see History). The rules here are the two-player game Five Cards that Charles Cotton described in 1674, which historians regard as Maw under a later name. Where Cotton is silent (dealing, the exact place of the King and Queen), they follow the Irish descendants of the game.

Players: 2 (4 can play in two partnerships – see Variants).
You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and paper and pencil.

The cards

A trick is one round in which each player plays one card; the best card wins it. Trumps are the cards of one suit chosen for each deal: any trump beats any card of another suit.

Maw has an unusual card order. Among the number cards, red cards rank high to low as normal, black cards the other way round – "the least of the black and the most of the red wins", as Cotton puts it.

Trumps, from high to low:

Trump suit	Order (high → low)
♥	5 A J K Q 10 9 8 7 6 4 3 2
♦	5 A♥ A J K Q 10 9 8 7 6 4 3 2
♣ ♠	5 A♥ A J K Q 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10

So the top trumps are always the 5 of trumps ("five fingers"), the A♥, the Ace of trumps and the Jack of trumps. The A♥ counts as a trump in every deal, whatever suit is trumps.

Plain suits (not trumps), from high to low:

♥ ♦ (red): K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 A. The A♦ is the lowest card of its suit – "the worst of the whole pack", says Cotton. The A♥ is never a plain card.
♣ ♠ (black): K Q J A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10.

Setup

Decide by lot who deals first; after that, take turns to deal.
The dealer shuffles, the other player cuts, and the dealer deals 5 cards each: first a packet of 3, then a packet of 2.
The dealer puts the rest of the deck face down and turns up the top card. Its suit is trumps.
If the dealer turns up the A♥, the dealer scores 4 points at once.

Fiving

Before play, the non-dealer may ask the dealer to "five it" – to change trumps. If the dealer agrees, the dealer turns up the next card of the deck, and its suit is trumps for this deal. If the dealer refuses, play goes on with the first trump.

Robbing

Whoever holds the Ace of trumps may rob: take the turned-up card into their hand and put any unwanted card face down under the deck. Do this before you play your first card. At court, robbing without holding the Ace cost 4 points and everything that had been bet on the game.

Example: The turned-up card is the 9♣, so clubs are trumps. Anna holds the A♣. Before the first trick she puts her 3♦ face down under the deck and takes the 9♣.

Playing the tricks

The non-dealer leads to the first trick; after that, the winner of each trick leads.

You must follow suit (play a card of the suit led) if you can. The A♥ counts as a trump, not as a heart. If you can't follow suit, you may play any card, including a trump.
The highest trump wins the trick. If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led wins.

Failing to follow suit when you could is called renouncing. The court laws punished it with the loss of the whole set.

Example: Clubs are trumps. Anna leads the 8♣. Ben plays the 3♣ and wins – among black trumps the low numbers are better. Ben then leads the 5♦; Anna has no diamonds and plays the J♠, a plain card, so Ben wins again.

Scoring

Whoever wins three or four tricks scores 5 points. Winning all five tricks scores 10. Add the 4 points for turning up the A♥.

Example: Ben deals and turns up the A♥ (4 points). Anna wins three tricks (5 points). Score: Anna 5, Ben 4.

Winning the game

Several games make a set. Whoever first reaches 26 points wins the set. Old sources do not give the target clearly; 26 is how Wikipedia reads the Groom Porter's laws.

Tips for beginners

Learn the order first. The five fingers, the A♥, the Ace and the Jack of trumps are the four cards everything turns on.
Count to three. You only need three tricks, so a hand with two top trumps and a King is already strong.
Fiving is a gamble. Ask for it only when you hold almost no trumps.
Rob wisely. When you rob, throw away your weakest plain card, not a lone King that could win a trick.

Variants

Agree on these before you start.

Four players: the court laws speak of a player's "mate", so Maw was also played two against two, partners sitting opposite. Everyone gets 5 cards, the player to the dealer's left leads, and the side that wins three or more tricks scores.
The older order: a text of 1593 calls the Jack of trumps "the second card at Maw". For play before Cotton's time, rank the Jack of trumps above the A♥: 5, J, A♥, A of trumps – the order still used in Forty-Fives.
Reneging (19th century): in the Irish game Five and Ten, the 5, the A♥ and the Ace of trumps need not be played when a lower trump is led, even if you have no other trump.
Dealer robs an Ace: in the Irish descendants, if the turned-up card is an Ace, the dealer may take it in exchange for a card from the hand.
Fiving until the suit changes: according to David Parlett's reading of Cotton, the dealer keeps turning cards until one of a different suit appears.

Background & history

Family: Trick-taking game (Spoil Five group)
Origin: Scotland and England, 16th century
Also known as: Mawe, Mayo, Maye; Five Cards (Cotton, 1674)
Related games: Five and Ten, Spoil Five, Twenty-Five, Forty-Fives, Ombre

Maw is the oldest known member of the family that includes Ireland's national game Twenty-Five and Forty-Fives. According to David Parlett, references to it in English literature are so numerous from about 1550 to 1650 that only the most informative need mentioning. Wikipedia notes that it was played at Hengrave Hall at Christmas 1572, and that a now-lost play called The Set at Maw opened at the Rose theatre in London on 14 December 1594. Around 1576–80, Arthur Hall called it "a playe at cardes grown out of the country, from the meanest, into credit at court with the greatest". A text of 1593 adds that "the knave of trumpes be the seconde carde at Mawe, yet the five-finger may commaunde both him and all the rest of the pack".

The game's most famous player was James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England in 1603; according to the Scottish state papers cited by Wikipedia, he played "Maye" at Kinneil House at Christmas 1588. Parlett writes that Maw became the chief game of the English court under James. A satirical pamphlet of 1622 said that the king had "lost the fairest game at Maw that ever King had, for want of making the best advantage of the five finger".

No full description of Maw survives. The Groom Porter's laws at Maw, a list of penalties from the royal court of about 1600, show that the five fingers, the A♥, robbing and partnership play already existed. Like many games, Maw died out in England during the Commonwealth (1649–1660). In 1674 Charles Cotton described Five Cards, "an Irish game", which historians take to be Maw; Cotton also records the old belief that the Ace of Diamonds is "the worst of the whole pack". In the 19th century the game re-emerged in Ireland as Five and Ten, Spoil Five and Forty-Five.

The rules on this page follow Cotton's Five Cards; details he leaves open are taken from the later Irish games.

Quick rules

Cheat sheet

Card order (high → low)

Score pad