I learned to play a cool card game during high school choir, but I can’t remember the name or all the rules, so I turn to you. The rules as I remember them:
• Normally played with four players, but three, five, or six player games are also possible.
• Players put sets of cards into a pile such as three-of-a-kind or a four-card run.
• Players following the opening bid must be able to beat the previous high bid by matching the number of cards and the type of set, but with higher cards.
• Cards in order of value from lowest to highest: 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K,A,2
• The player who runs out of cards first wins, but play continues to determine all player rankings.*
• After the cards are dealt for the next hand, players swap cards. The first place player gets the last place player’s best three cards, and gives his choice of three cards in exchange. Second place and second-to-last do the same with two cards. In a six-player game, 3rd and 4th swap one card. With an odd number of players, the middle ranked player keeps his cards.
• Play starts again beginning with the first-place player.
• If the current first-place player does not place first in the next hand, he automatically is ranked last for the next hand.
There were also names for the ranks of players, like “King” and “Queen” for first and second, and “Dog” for last. I’m not too sure on the exact names, though. I’m also not sure whether runs need to be suited or not, and if a three-card run could be beaten by a four-card run, and a few other details. What was I playing?
*: Winning might have been determined by counting the cards collected by winning bids.
I don’t know of any name for that game except Asshole…well, except for a few we used when we had to censor ourselves in front of teachers - Sun (because Sun in Portuguese is Sol, which sounds like Asshole), President (the opposite rank to Asshole), Idiot (a less vulgar insult), and the like.
The ranks we used were President, Vice-President, Vice-Asshole, and Asshole. We used to play the game with up to 7 players, but the third trading ranks in that case didn’t have names.
The cards could be suited or not (highest to lowest: D, C, H, S), depending how everyone wanted to play.
Oops. I did that exactly backwards. Highest to Lowest goes Spades, Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds.
And I think I misinterpretted your reference to suits - a 4H could be played on a 3D or a 3S or a 3H, or so on. Playing with the suits ranked allowed you to do things like play a 4S on a 4H…in cases of pairs, I can’t remember if all the cards in the new set had to beat the old one, or if just the higher card in each set counted. Maybe it never came up.
Deuces and Jokers (Jokers were the highest rank in our variant) had special rules when played after pairs or larger - a single deuce could trump a pair, or a single Joker could trump four of a kind (or a pair of deuces).
When I played this game in college (with some rule tweaks) we called it “Rich Man Poor Man”. They have a version on the nintendo DS game Clubhouse Games where they call it President, and I think that version would qualify as the “standard” version, so I’d say go ahead and call it President. Googling “card game rules president” will get you the official rules.
FWIW, one of the tweaks of Rich Man Poor Man was something called a 2-cutter, which could beat a 2 if it was played. A 2-cutter consisted of either 4 of a kind, or 3 consecutive pairs (66-77-88). It is one of the best card games I played because it can be played with as few as 2 people (with some more tweaks), fast, easy to learn, and has a fair amount of strategy to it.
This has also been published as a stand-alone game called “The Great Dalmuti”, and its Dilbert-licensed equivalent, “Corporate Shuffle.” Both by Wizards of the Coast.
My friends and I refer to it as “Feudal Wars”, with the ranks being “King, queen, merchant, serf”.
It has some similarities to an interesting 4-player game called “Tichu”.
(Feudal wars trivia… We came up with the following terms for overwhelming victories:
-If you play all your cards before anyone else has played a single card, you become “Supreme Ruler”
-If you play all your cards before anyone else COULD play a single card, you become a demi-god
-If you look at your hand, and immediately realize that you can play all your cards before anyone could play a single card, you become God.