“Ladders” – A card game for two players
A couple of years ago I was on Sicily with my former girlfriend. We spent some evenings indoors due to bad weather, drinking tea with rum and chatting. We also designed a card game which we played a lot. This is what we ended up with…
Preparations
The players take turns on who is the dealer. The current dealer gives each player 6 cards, the rest of the deck is put face-down on the table. Three cards are then put face-up beside the deck. These are the three “stacks”.
Objective
The objective of the game “Ladders” is to gather a full hand of six cards (or seven, if you’re in luck) containing one or more straight flushes, each containing at least 3 cards. These are examples of valid hands:
- Spades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
- Hearts J, Q, K and Clubs 9, 10, J
- Diamonds 2, 3, 4, 5 and Clubs 5, 6, 7 (given that a “seven card” hand is built, see below)
Playing “Ladders”
The first player picks up a card (“the seventh card”), either from one of the three “stacks”, or the blind top card from the deck. The player then drops a card, either the one he/she picked up or one of the other six cards. The dropped card is always put face-up on top of one of the three stacks. The card can be put on a stack even if it’s empty.
Then the turn goes over to the other player who picks up a card from either one of the stacks or the deck. The card is either kept or dropped. If it’s kept, one of the other six cards on the hand is dropped.
If the deck runs out, cards are picked from the stacks.
When a player is holding a “seventh card” (the one the player picks up when it’s his/her turn) and the rest of the hand is consisting of nothing but valid straight flushes, the player can decide to end the round by laying his/her hand face up on the table. When a round is ended scores are awarded.
Scores
The seventh card value gives the score the round-ending player will receive. Jacks are 11, Queens 12, Kings 13 and Aces are high with a score of 14.
For example: The hand contains spades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 of and a hearts 7. This gives 7 points for the hearts-card which is the seventh score-card.
If the player manages to create a 7 card full hand of straight flushes, he/she receives a score of 20.
For example: diamonds 4, 5, 6, 7 and hearts 9, 10, J.
The other player’s score is based on the stray cards that are not part of straight flush suits on the hand (here, two-card suits counts). Each card not part of a suit yields a score of -5.
For example: clubs 8, 9, J, clubs 2,hearts J and spades Q gives a score of -15.
After the scores have been awarded, the dealer shuffles the deck and a new round starts.
The game continues until a certain score is reached or until a certain number of rounds has been played.
