Quatorze

Method

In Quatorze, the goal is to end the game with the lowest score while pushing every other player to 201 points or more. The dealer changes to the right after each round, with the first dealer picked at random. The dealer shuffles, and the player to their left cuts the deck. If the bottom card of the cut section is a joker, the cutter may keep it.

The cut section is placed on the table as the stockpile, and the dealer deals from their own hand first, drawing from the top of the stockpile if needed. The player to the dealer’s right receives three cards initially, then each player (including the dealer) gets two cards at a time, moving counterclockwise, until everyone has 14 cards except the player to the dealer’s right, who ends up with 15. Any leftover cards in the dealer’s hand go on top of the stockpile.

Game play

The player holding 15 cards begins by discarding one card face up, creating the discard pile. The player to their right may then either take the top card from the discard pile or draw a face-down card from the stockpile. The discard pile can only be drawn from if that card will immediately be used in a meld. Melding is how players reduce their hand and lower their score.

A meld, or “going down,” involves placing cards on the table as triplets or quadruplets of different suits (for example, three tens of different suits) or as a same-suit run of at least three cards and up to 13 (like a sequence of hearts from nine to king). The total value of the cards in a player’s first meld must be at least 51. Once a player has met this minimum, they may add new sets or runs as they collect them, and they can also add cards to any other player’s melds on the table to complete a set of four or extend a run.

Every turn must end with a discard. This means a player holding two cards cannot draw a third and meld it without a card left to discard. The round ends as soon as one player has emptied their hand.