OVERVIEW
Glaves is a trick-taking card game for 2-4 players. A standard 52-card deck is used; aces are high, and twos are low. It is a modified combination of two old card games named German Whist and Knaves (hence the name Glaves). The object of the game is to get to a winning score before the other players do by playing several hands. See total winning scores below based on the number of players. The score for each hand is the number of tricks taken minus any penalty points for Jacks (Knaves) taken. Several hands are played until one of the players gets the winning score (or more). The player with the highest total score is the winner. In the case of a tie, which is rare, the youngest tied player wins.

SETUP
Shuffle the deck. For 2 players, deal 13 cards to each player. For 3 or 4 players, deal 9 cards each. Place the remaining cards face down as a draw pile and turn the top card face up. If playing with three players, take the bottom card from the draw pile and put it aside, face up. Its suit is the trump suit for the entire hand and is not otherwise used in the game. With 3 players, taking the bottom card out makes the deck evenly split across the three players. For 2 or 4 players, the face-up card on top of the draw pile at the start of the hand is the trump suit for the entire hand. Subsequent face-up cards don't affect the trump suit in any way.

PLAY
The person to the left of the dealer plays a card from their hand face-up in the middle of the table. They can choose any card from their hand of any suit. (NOTE: The face-up card on the draw pile does not determine which suit is played, it's just the card that the winner of this trick will take into their hand.) Each player must play the same suit led unless they don't have that suit, in which case, they may play a card of a different suit. The highest card of the suit led takes the trick unless trump cards are played, then the highest trump card played takes the trick. The person who takes the trick takes the face-up card on top of the draw pile into their hand. The person to their left takes the next face-down card from the draw pile into their hand and so on until the last player has taken a card into their hand. The last player to take from the draw pile then turns the next card face-up. The person who took the trick goes first in the next trick. Since each player draws a card from the draw pile each trick, the players will have the same number of cards in their hands until the draw pile is depleted. Once the draw pile is depleted, play continues without drawing cards from the draw pile so that each player's hand decreases in size by one card per trick until all cards in their hands are gone. That ends that hand and scores are totaled and recorded.

SCORING
Each trick you take counts as one point. Each Jack you took in those tricks counts as -4 points for the Jack of hearts, -3 points for the Jack of diamonds, -2 points for the Jack of clubs, and -1 point for the Jack of spades. It is possible to have a negative score if you take enough Jacks.





Jack Suit
Penalty



Hearts
-4 points



Diamonds
-3 points



Clubs
-2 points



Spades
-1 point




The total points across all players scored per hand for two players is 16, for 3 players is 7, and for 4 players is 3. That's the total number of tricks minus 10 (the total Jack penalty). You can make sure all scores each hand add up to those totals to make sure everyone counted correctly. Play additional hands until one player reaches a total of 46 or more points for two players, 20 points for three players, or 9 points for 3 players.





Players
Cards Dealt
Total tricks
Total points per hand
Winning score after multiple hands



2
13
26
16
46



3
9
17
7
20



4
9
13
3
9




SHOOTING THE MOON
Any player may "shoot the moon" by taking all 4 jacks (instead of avoiding them). This gives them the total number of available points for that hand (for example, 7 points for a three-player game), and everyone else gets zero points. If you think someone is trying to shoot the moon, then you need to figure out how to eat the least painful jack before they end up with all the jacks. Unless a player has the jack of the trump suit and perhaps one more jack, it can be difficult and risky to shoot the moon. A player who is trying to shoot the moon might pretend to be disappointed at taking each jack, but not too disappointed, or the other players might catch on.

STRATEGY
Queens, Kings, and Aces are often dangerous cards since they take tricks with Jacks in them. The strategy for this game is to pay attention to what has been played and what that implies about each player's hand, to be careful not to take Jacks by playing more conservatively the closer you get to the end of the game, and to purposefully run out of suits so you can drop a non-trump Jack on someone else's trick when the suit you don't have is lead. Be sure to laugh and talk trash when you drop a Jack on someone who was happy to be taking a trick only moments before.

ORIGINS
My two coworkers and I invented and play-tested this game from 2-4 players for over a year to refine and balance it. 3 players is the optimal number, but 2 and 4 work fine as well.

GLOSSARY
Trick: One round of play where each player plays one card in the middle. The highest-ranked card of the suit led (or the highest-ranked trump suit card, see below) takes the trick (the pile of cards played).

Trump Suit: This is the suit (hearts, diamonds, clubs, or spades) which is selected as being higher than the rest of the suits. If a card of a trump suit is played on cards of non-trump suits, then the trump suit card takes the trick.

—description from the designer