Episode IV

In Episode IV, players are trying to create two poker hands, and the player with the most valuable hands will be the winner.

The game uses two decks of cards. One is referred to as the "Normal" cards, and consists of ranks 1 through 10 in each of 4 suits. The other is referred to as the "Randolph" deck, in an allusion to the designer Alex Randolph, as they are acquired through the mechanism popularized in Hol's der Geier. The "Randolph" cards may have more than one possible color and/or rank.

The game consists of 4 phases, and each player will have ten cards in their hand at the beginning and end of each phase.

In the first phase, the players are dealt 10 cards each from the Normal deck, and will draft cards until they have one card of each rank in their hand.

In the second phase, the players will reveal a certain number of Randolph cards face up and have an auction for them using the Hol's der Geier mechanism. For players who have their bid cancelled, they will return their Normal card to their hand at the end of the round. Otherwise, players will enter the next round with any Normal cards they did not bid, and any Randolph cards they won.

In the third phase, a trick-taking round occurs, which is must follow and does not have a trump suit. The winner of a trick distributes the cards from the trick to the players as they choose, with each player getting 1 card.

In the fourth phase, the players make two face down rows of 5 cards with the cards they obtained in the trick-taking phase. Each row is revealed simultaneously and awarded a given number of points based upon poker hand type conditions. There are a few exceptions in cases where only one player scores, or only one player does not score.