Playcard games

Yaniv: questions and answers

Short answers to the questions people ask most about Yaniv. Everything else is in the full rules.

What are the cards worth in Yaniv?
An ace is 1, number cards are worth their number, jacks, queens and kings are 10, and a joker is 0. Only the total of your hand matters, and you want it as low as possible.
What can you throw away in Yaniv?
One card, a set of two or more of the same rank, or a run of three or more consecutive cards in one suit. Aces are low, so A-2-3 is a run and Q-K-A is not. Then you take one card back.
Where do you draw from?
Either the top of the deck, or one of the cards the previous player just threw away. From a set you may take any card; from a run, only one of the two end cards.
When can you call yaniv?
At the start of your turn, if your hand totals seven or less — five at some tables. You call before you throw anything away, so a hand that drops under the line has to survive a round of other players before you can say it.
What is an assaf?
When you call yaniv and someone else has the same total or less. They have assafed you: you take 30 points plus your own hand, and they score nothing. Everyone else scores what they were holding, as usual.
What happens at 50 and 100 points?
If your score lands on exactly 50 or exactly 100, it is cut in half. Passing over them does nothing, so a player on 43 who can take exactly 7 is playing for something quite different from everyone else.
How do you win Yaniv?
Points are bad. The game ends when someone reaches the target — 100 or 200, agreed at the start — and the player with the lowest score wins.
Do you play Yaniv with jokers?
Usually, with two. A joker is worth nothing, which makes it the best card to hold. In some rules it can also stand in for a card in a run; at the table here it is simply a zero you can throw away on its own.