Rats

Rats is a trick-taking game where each player is dealt a hand of 7 cards and an initial trump suit is determined by revealing the top card of the deck. The suit of this card is the trump suit for the first hand of cards.

The player left of the dealer leads the trick and everybody follows suit. The highest card takes the trick. If you cannot follow suit then you have the option to trump. A trump card beats everything other than another trump card. A card plaid which does not follow suit and is not a trump has no trick-taking capabilities. Trumps cannot be led until you have no cards left to lead other than trumps or until a trick has been taken by trumping another suit.

After the entire hand has been played, anybody that took 0 tricks is on "stand-by" for the rest of the game. The player that took the most tricks declares the next trump suit. Ties are broken by having each player draw from the remaining cards in the deck until one player draws a higher card than the other, and they decide the trump suit for the next hand.

A second hand of 6 cards is dealt, and then the player that decides trumps declares the trump suit. Play continues until all tricks have been taken. Any player which is on stand-by and took no tricks is eliminated from the game. Any player which was not previously on stand-by and took 0 tricks is now on stand-by. Whoever took the most tricks declares the next trump suit. Ties are broken as before.

Play continues with each hand decreasing down to 1 card or until all players have been eliminated. If two or more players remain after the hand of 1 card, play continues with hands of 1 card until only one player remains.

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