Speculation

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Buying and selling
5. Turning up the cards
6. The next deal
7. Winning the game
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Speculation is a lively party game from the time of Jane Austen, in which a whole table bargains over cards that nobody has seen yet. Everyone puts chips into a pool, and a card turned up at the start decides the trump suit. The player who ends up owning the highest trump – the highest card of that suit – wins the pool. You don't play your cards; you turn them up one at a time. Whenever a new best trump appears, its owner may sell it to the highest bidder, and you may also buy other players' face-down cards, hoping a high trump is hidden among them.

These rules follow Hoyle's Games (1847) together with the reconstruction that David Parlett made for a film of Mansfield Park. The game is hardly played any more.

• Players: 3–9; best with 5–8.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and chips (or counters, matches) – about 40 per person. Play for chips only.

The cards

Only the trump suit matters. Its cards rank from high to low: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. A card of any other suit is worth nothing.

Setup

1. Choose the first dealer. After each deal the deal passes to the left.
2. Pool: the dealer puts 6 chips into the middle, everyone else 4.
3. Deal: the dealer deals three cards face down to each player, one at a time. Leave them in a neat pile in front of you. Don't look at them – not even your own.
4. Trump: the dealer turns up the next card. Its suit is trumps for this deal, and the card itself belongs to the dealer, who leaves it face up in front of them. It is the first best trump on the table.
5. Put the rest of the deck aside for the next deals (see "The next deal").

Ace turned up? Then the dealer already holds the best possible trump and takes the pool at once. The next player deals.

Buying and selling

This is the heart of the game – the "speculation". Prices are haggled out loud, and a seller may accept the best offer or refuse all of them. The buyer pays the seller directly; the chips don't go into the pool.

• The turned-up trump: before anyone turns a card, the dealer may sell it. The buyer puts it face up on top of their own pile.
• A new best trump: whenever someone turns up a trump higher than the best one on the table, its owner may sell it at once or keep it.
• Hidden cards: at any time, anyone may offer to buy one or more face-down cards from another player's pile. The buyer may not look at them, but puts them face down under their own pile and turns them up later in the normal way. (The old books list this as a variation; Parlett's reconstruction makes it part of the game.)

Turning up the cards

1. The player on the dealer's left begins – or, if the dealer sold the turned-up trump, the player on the buyer's left. They turn up the top card of their pile and leave it face up.
2. If it isn't a higher trump, the next player to the left turns up their top card, and so on round the table.
3. The player who owns the best trump so far is skipped – they turn nothing up until someone beats their trump. A player with no face-down cards left is skipped too.
4. When a higher trump appears, its owner may sell it (see above). Then turning continues with the player on the left of whoever now owns it.

End of the deal: when every card except the best-trump owner's has been turned up – or as soon as the Ace of trumps appears – the owner of the best trump takes the whole pool.

Example: Anna deals; Ben, Carla and Dan sit to her left in that order. The pool holds 18 chips. The turned-up card is the 9♥, so hearts are trumps. Carla buys the 9♥ from Anna for 3 chips. Dan turns first: 4♠. Anna turns the J♥ – a higher trump! Ben pays her 5 chips for it. Now Carla turns: K♣, nothing. Dan: 7♦. Anna: 3♠. Ben is skipped. Carla: the Q♥ – she keeps it. Dan: A♣, Anna: 10♦, Ben: 5♥. Dan and Anna have no cards left, so Ben turns his last two: 2♣ and 8♠. Only Carla's third card is still hidden, so she wins the 18 chips. She paid 3 for the 9♥, which turned out not to matter.

The next deal

The cards of a deal are not shuffled back at once: put them aside, and deal the next hand from the rest of the deck. Only when the rest is too small for a full deal, shuffle all 52 cards together again. That is why good players remember which high cards have already appeared.

Winning the game

Agree beforehand how long to play – for example until everyone has dealt twice. Whoever then has the most chips wins.

Tips for beginners

• A trump's price depends on how many higher trumps could still be out there – and how many cards are still face down. Early in a deal, a Jack is worth little; with two cards left to turn, it may be a winner.
• Remember the earlier deals: if the King and Queen of hearts went by in the last hand, a Jack of hearts is worth much more now.
• When you own the best trump, buying the face-down cards of the others is a way to stop them turning up something higher.
• Sell when the offer is more than your share of the risk. A pool of 20 chips with a trump that wins half the time is worth about 10.

Variants

Optional – agree before you start.

• Honours turned up (Foster's Complete Hoyle, 1897): if the turned-up card is a King, Queen or Jack, the dealer may sell it, and then all cards are turned up at once; the best trump wins.
• Fives and Jacks (Parlett): anyone who turns up a Five or a Jack pays one chip into the pool.
• Spare hand (Parlett): the dealer deals one extra pile of three cards that nobody owns. At the end it is turned up; if it holds a higher trump than the winner's, nobody wins, and the pool stays for the next deal.