Phat (card game)

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Phat
All Fours • Don

Phat is an English

First World War. Phat is still played in England in Herefordshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. In Scotland it is known around Motherwell and Wishaw.[2]

History

In Hereford there is a tradition that Phat was imported by US servicemen stationed there during the

First World War by, for example, "London bus drivers and clippies".[2] This early date is corroborated by Cassells in his 1918 book on the wartime record of the Black Watch, a Scottish regiment, where Phat is described as "a common card game among the Tommies".[3]

Its military connexion is reinforced by a passing mention in the 1938 edition of St. George's Gazette where "the usual game of Phat is getting popular again" among soldiers of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.[4]

Phat was also once common in the East Anglian counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and, in 1990, it was played "on a highly organised league basis in and around Norwich".

trump 10 was Big Phat and trump 5 was Little Phat, and the Rumburgh Buck, which lies over the county border in Rumburgh, Suffolk.[6]

Object

The aim of the game is to score points by winning

deal
- 80 phat plus 8 for the muck.

Card ranking

Phat is played by four players sitting crosswise in two

suit
.

A

dealt to each player, one at a time. Points are recorded on a Phat board, up to a yard long and resembling a Cribbage
board, but with 90 holes (per team) instead of the usual 60, which facilitates scoring to 181.

Deal and play

Each player

suit led
, or by the highest trump if any are played, and the winner of each trick then leads to the next.

Scoring

Scoring the phat

During play, the following cards won in tricks entitle the trick-winner to peg his side the corresponding points as follows:

Card Score
9 18 if trump, 9 if non-trump
5 10 if trump, 5 if non-trump
Trump Ace 4
Trump King 3
Trump Queen 2
Trump Jack 1

Scoring the muck

When play has ended, each side counts the muck, the

counting cards
it has won in tricks on the following basis:

Card Score
Each Ace 4
Each King 3
Each Queen 2
Each Jack 1
Each 10 10

The side with the greater aggregate value, pegs eight holes on the Phat board. Thus, in each deal, there are 88 points to be played for: 80 phat points and 8 muck points. The game continues until one side wins by reaching or exceeding a score of 181 points.

Don

History and distribution

Don is a related game usually called Nine-card Don, but also Big Don, Long Don and Welsh Don. It was originally known as Don Pedro, not to be confused with the related American game of

Dom Pedro
.

An 1864 English dictionary of slang relates that "five fingers" is the five of trumps in game of "Five-cards or Don" and that "Don Pedro" is "a low game at cards [that] is a compound of All Fours, and the Irish game variously termed All Fives, Five and Ten, Fifteen, Forty-five, &c. It was no doubt invented by the mixed English and Irish rabble who

Dom Pedro, although the two have different rules. It was probably named after the victor in the Portuguese civil war, Dom Pedro
, who had been supported by British troops. By the 1870s, it was commonly known as Don.

Nine-card Don is played in England in Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, and also in South Wales. It is still popular in the military, notably in the Cheshire and Staffordshire Regiments (now the 1st and 3rd battalions of the Mercian Regiment respectively). Meanwhile Irish Don is played in Dublin and Cork.[2]

Overview

Four players sitting crosswise in

rank
are as follows:

Table of Point Value for
Plain Suit
Nine the team scores 9 points Ace the team counts 4 points toward the game score
Five the team scores 10 points King the team counts 3 points toward the game score
Ace the team scores 4 points Queen the team counts 2 points toward the game score
King the team scores 3 points Jack the team counts 1 point toward the game score
Queen the team scores 2 points 10 the team counts 10 points toward the game score
Jack the team scores 1 point 9, 8, 7, 6 the team scores 0 each
10, 8, 7, 6 the team scores 0 each 5 the team scores 5 points
4, 3, 2 the team scores 0 each 4, 3, 2 the team scores 0 each

Thus there are 44 points to be won during play and 8 more for "game" at the end of play, making a total of 52 points available per deal (unlike the 88 in standard Phat).

Deal and play

One player from each team

follow suit
if possible, otherwise may play any card. The trick is taken by the highest card led or by the highest trump if any are played. Each trick-winner leads to the next.

Scoring

During

counters
and Fives taken in tricks. After play, each side counts all counting cards taken in tricks (Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks, 10s - as shown in the table above) known as the game score. The side with the greater total pegs 8 extra.

A slight variation is that a side will claim 6 points for the highest total plus one for the highest trump and another one for the jack of trumps (meaning that sometimes only 7 bonus points are scored). Another variation is to score 5 points for the highest total and one for high trump, one for low trump and one for jack of trumps (again meaning that sometimes only 7 bonus points are scored).

Footnotes

  1. Spoil Five.[9][10]

References

  1. ^ Parlett (1992), p. 193.
  2. ^ a b c d Phat at pagat.com. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
  3. ^ Cassells (1918), p. 150.
  4. ^ St. George's Gazette (1938), p. 138.
  5. ^ Parlett (1990), p. 260.
  6. ^ Old card game makes a comeback at lowestoftjournal.co.uk. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
  7. ^ Hotten (1864), p. 134.
  8. ^ Leland (1889), p. 364.
  9. ^ Cotton (1674), p. 90.
  10. ^ Singer (1816), p. 340.

Bibliography

External links
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