Rook

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Bidding
5. The nest and trumps
6. Playing the tricks
7. Scoring
8. Winning the game
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

Rook is a partnership trick-taking game with bidding, one of the most popular card games in parts of the USA and Canada. Four players form two teams of two; partners sit opposite each other. In each deal the players bid for the right to take the nest – five spare cards in the middle – and to choose the trump suit. The bid is a number of points: the winning team must then capture at least that many points in counters (the scoring cards) in its tricks. The first team to reach 300 points wins.

Rook is normally played with a special Rook deck: four coloured suits numbered 1 to 14 plus a card showing a rook (a black bird). These rules describe the official tournament game, Kentucky Discard, played with a standard deck and one joker in the usual adaptation: the 5 to Ace of each suit replace the Rook cards 5 to 14, and the joker becomes the Rook.

• Players: exactly 4, in two partnerships.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck plus one joker, and paper and pencil for the score.

The cards

Take out all 2s, 3s and 4s and add one joker. That leaves 41 cards: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 in each suit, plus the joker.

• In each suit the cards rank from high to low: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5.
• The joker is the Rook. It is always the highest trump – whichever suit is trumps – and has some special rules (see below).

Only some cards score. They are called counters:

Together they are worth 120 points in each deal. All other cards are worth nothing.

Setup

1. Teams and first dealer: agree on teams or draw cards; the turn to deal passes to the left after each deal.
2. The dealer shuffles, has the deck cut and deals all 41 cards one at a time, clockwise, starting on the left. After each of the first five rounds of the deal, the dealer also places one card face down in the middle.
3. Everyone now has 9 cards, and the 5 face-down cards in the middle are the nest – extra cards that only the winner of the bidding will see.

Redeal: a player who holds no counters at all may ask for a new deal at any time during the bidding.

Bidding

Starting with the player to the dealer's left and going clockwise, each player either bids or passes.

• A bid is a number of points, the least your team promises to capture. The lowest bid is 70, the highest 120, always in steps of 5 (70, 75, 80 …).
• Each bid must be higher than the one before.
• Once you pass, you may not bid again in this deal.
• The bidding goes round as often as needed until three players have passed. The last player in is the bidder, and their team the bidding team.

If all four pass, the official rules don't say what happens; a common solution is that the dealer must then take the minimum bid of 70.

The nest and trumps

The bidder picks up the 5 cards of the nest without showing them, so they now hold 14 cards. Then they put 5 cards face down aside as the new nest. No counters may go in it – unless the only other cards they could give up are the ones they want as trumps; then they must say so aloud. The nest now belongs to whoever wins the last trick.

Then the bidder names the trump suit. Any trump beats any card of another suit.

Playing the tricks

A trick is one card from each player, played clockwise. The player on the dealer's left leads (plays the first card) to the first trick; after that, the winner of each trick leads to the next.

1. You must follow suit: play a card of the suit that was led if you can.
2. If you can't, you may play any card – a trump or anything else.
3. The trick is won by the highest trump in it; if there is none, by the highest card of the suit led.

Keep your tricks face down; you may not look through them until the deal is over.

The Rook (joker):

• It counts as the highest trump and wins any trick it is played to.
• You may play it at any time, even if you could follow suit. It is the only card you may play this way.
• If the Rook is led, everyone else must play a trump if they can.
• If trumps are led and the Rook is your only trump, you must play it.

Example: Hearts are trumps. Anna leads the A♠. Ben follows with the 5♠. Carla has spades but plays the Rook anyway – she may do so at any time. Dan plays the 10♠. Carla's Rook wins: her team captures 20 + 10 + 5 + 10 = 45 points.

Reneging: failing to follow suit when you could is called reneging. If it is noticed before the next trick is taken, it may be corrected. If it is found later, the deal stops at once: the offending team loses points equal to the bid (whoever made it), and the other team scores the counters it has captured so far.

Scoring

After the 9th trick, the winner of the last trick also takes the nest. Then each team counts the counters in its tricks (the two totals add up to 120).

• Bidding team made its bid (at least as many points as it bid): it scores all the points it took.
• Bidding team fell short: it scores nothing for its cards and loses the amount of its bid – its score can go below zero. This is called being set.
• The other team always scores the counters it took.

Example: Anna bid 85. Her team takes 90 points, the opponents 30. Anna's team scores 90, the opponents 30. Had Anna's team taken only 80, it would have lost 85, and the opponents would have scored 40.

Winning the game

The first team to reach 300 points wins. If both teams pass 300 in the same deal, the team with more points wins.

Tips for beginners

• Count your counters and your trumps before you bid. The nest may help – but it may also give you useless cards.
• As bidder, choose the suit in which you have the most cards as trumps, and use the discard to get rid of a short suit completely, so you can trump it.
• The nest goes to whoever wins the last trick, so plan to win it, especially if you had to put counters in.
• When your partner is winning a trick, add a counter to it; when the opponents are winning, give them a card without points.
• Keep track of the Rook. Until it has been played, no trump of yours is safe.

Variants

• Rook as lowest trump: in many home games the Rook ranks below the 5 of trumps and is played like any other trump – not whenever you like.
• Counters allowed in the nest: in many home games the bidder may discard counters freely; they go to whoever wins the last trick.
• Full-deck Rook: at some tables all 52 cards plus the joker are used, with 12 cards each and 5 in the nest. Counters (as in the form given in Hoyle's Rules of Games): joker 20, Ace 15, King 10, 10 10, 5 5 – 180 points per deal. Raise the bids and the target to suit; Kentucky Rook, another 180-point form, has a minimum bid of 100 and plays to 500.