Euchre grown up, with a joker and a kitty to bid for.
Australia's national card game, and the missing step between euchre and bridge. Four players in partnerships, with a joker and a kitty to bid for.
43 cards: the 52-card deck stripped of the twos, threes, the black fours, and with one joker added.
Ten cards each, and three face down as the kitty.
As in euchre, the jack of trump is the right bower and the other jack of the same colour is the left bower, counting as trump. The joker is the highest trump of all. In a no-trump contract the joker is a suit of its own and can be led.
Each player bids a number of tricks from six to ten and a denomination, or passes. Denominations rank spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts, no-trump, so eight diamonds beats eight clubs. Misère is a bid to take no tricks at all, played with your hand exposed in open misère.
The winning bidder takes the kitty into hand and discards three.
The declarer leads. Follow suit if you can. Highest trump wins, otherwise highest card of the suit led.
Each contract has a fixed value from a printed table, running from 40 points for six spades to 520 for ten no-trump. Make it and score the value; overtricks add little. Fail and lose the value instead.
The defenders score 10 per trick they take.
Game is 500 points — hence the name — and a partnership dropping to minus 500 loses outright.