Blues and Greens: A new card game

In early 2022, I was at home for a week because of snow, cold, and COVID. Over the course of a few days' boredom, I came up with a new card game. The goal of this game is to combine trick-taking and melding mechanics in a novel way. It turned out a bit more complicated than I had hoped, so I have never gotten the chance to play-test it with real people. Here are the rules, as written back then. Perhaps I will update it in the future.

Setup

• Game is for four players, playing in partnerships with the person across from them
• Two separate decks of cards are used: one deck of green-backed (trick-taking) cards and one deck of blue-backed (melding) cards. Neither deck has jokers.
• If green and blue decks are unavailable, decks with different back designs (and ideally different front designs) can be used as long as players agree which is which.
• A 13 card hand is dealt to every player from the green deck
• The top ten cards of the blue deck are splayed out on the table, face up. If there are any twos showing, shuffle them back into the deck and replace them

Bidding

• The player to the left of the dealer begins the bid auction
• They can choose to pass, or to bid on how many points they and their partner will win during the hand. The minimum bid is 136.
• Each successive player can choose to pass or bid at least one more point than the previous bid.
• Once a player passes, they are out of the auction and cannot join back in.
• The player with the highest bid wins the auction. They can then do three things:
  • Announce the trump suit.
  • Pass cards: Their partner first passes them four cards from their hand, then the bidder looks at those cards and chooses four more to pass back to their partner
  • Play first
• If every player passes before bidding, then there is no trump or passing. The player to the left of the dealer goes first.
• After the passing and before the play, any players with a black 3 must announce it and show the other players their black threes before returning them to their hand (see “special cards.")

Play

• Play consists of a combination of melding and taking tricks.
• At the beginning of their turn, each player must draw a card in one of three ways:
  • Draw 1 card from the top of the blue deck
  • Draw the top card from the face-up blue cards
  • Draw a card from the face-up blue cards that isn’t the top card. They must play that card in a meld on that turn and they must also take all cards above it
• After drawing, the player can choose to lay down a meld on the table. The first meld played by any player must score at least 10 points. Valid melds are:
  • Sets of at least three of the same-ranked card
  • Sequences of at least three consecutive cards of the same suit. Aces cannot be low.
• A player can also choose to build on existing melds. In order to differentiate cards played by each team during scoring, if the meld belongs to the opposing team, then the player just lays the card alone on the table in front of them.
• After a player melds, or if a player chooses not to meld, then they must choose a card to play in the trick at the center of the table. Players do not discard as in most rummy-type games.
• The trick works like in most other trick-taking games. The first player to place a card onto it sets the leading suit. Every player to play another card on the trick must follow suit. If they cannot follow suit, they must play a trump. If they cannot play a trump, they can play any card they want. However, unlike other trick-taking games, players must observe the distinction between green and blue cards: tricks cannot be led with blue cards unless the leader is out of green cards. This example should explain the distinction:
  • Hearts are trump. West leads with the green 8 of clubs
  • North has no green clubs, so they must play a blue club.
  • North has no blue clubs, so they must play a green trump.
  • North has no green trumps, so they must play a blue trump.
  • North has no blue trumps, so they can play any green card.
  • North has no green cards left, so they can play any blue card.
  • North plays a blue 3 of diamonds
• However, when determining the winner of a trick, the deck the card comes from does not matter (except in the event of a tie, see below) and point values are the same.
• After all four cards have been played into the trick, the player who played the highest trump card takes the trick and sets it facedown on the table next to them. If there are no trump cards in the trick, then the highest card of the leading suit wins the trick. If there are multiple cards that could win the trick (i.e. North plays a green A of trump and East plays a blue A of trump), then the green card wins the trick.

Draw Pile

• After a player draws from the ten faceup blue cards, the missing cards are immediately replaced with blue cards to get the pile back up to ten unless there are no blue cards left in the deck. If a two is ever in the faceup cards, it is shuffled back into the blue deck and replaced.

Special Cards

To simplify the game or as a variation, players can choose to remove some or all of the special cards from the deck before play or choose to treat them as normal cards. Special cards do not have a suit (except for when telling apart red threes from black threes).

Twos:

• Twos are wild and can stand in for any card in a meld. If ever a two is in the face up splay of blue cards, it is removed and shuffled into the blue deck before being replaced.
• When determining if you can play a two in a trick, twos are not counted as leading suit or trump. The blue-green distinction does still exist, however.
• If a two is played in a trick, the trick is won by the opposing team no matter the values of the other cards.
• If both teams play a two in a trick, the twos cancel each other out and don’t affect the trick.
• If in the unlikely event that all players play a two, the trick is set aside, won by no players. The next trick is led by the leader of the two trick.

Red Threes:

• Red threes cannot be used in melds. They can be played in a trick but will never win it, regardless of their value, suit, or the other cards.
• When determining if you can play a red three in a trick, red threes are not counted as leading suit or as trump. The blue-green distinction does still exist, however.
• Red threes can be laid down on the table and counted as positive points for the player’s team if and only if that player goes out on that same turn.
• In the extremely unlikely event that all players play a red three in the same trick, the trick is won by whoever led it.

Black Threes:

• Black threes are the ultimate trump card. When played in a trick, they will automatically win it.
• Black threes cannot be used in melds
• When determining if they can be played in a trick, they count as part of the trump suit
• If multiple black threes are played in a trick, green beats blue. If both black threes are of the same color, then the first player to play a black three wins the trick

Going Out

• When a player runs out of cards in their hand, before or after discarding, they have “gone out.” If the trick is completed by their discard, it goes to the winner of the trick. If the trick is incomplete when they go out, it goes to them (even if they didn’t play on it).
• Play stops and the scoring process begins

Scoring

Every card has a point value. To score, partnerships add up the points of all the cards they have melded or taken in a trick. They then add the values of all the cards left in their opponents’ hands. Point values of trump cards are doubled.

If the bidding team failed to make their bid, then they can earn a maximum of 0 points that round. Their score is calculated as normal, and if it is less than zero it is recorded, and if it is greater than 0 it is recorded as 0.

If a team scores 156 points or greater in a single round, then they earn a 50 point bonus.

Winning

The game ends when a team reaches 500 points at the end of a hand. If both teams reach 500 points at the end of the same hand, the team with the greater score wins. In the unlikely event that both teams are tied, another hand is played to determine the winner.