Red nines

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Red Nines
Stops group
Players4–8
Age range5+
Cards52 (4 players)
DeckFrench
Rank (high→low)K Q J 10–2 A
PlayClockwise
ChanceHigh
Related games
Comet

Red Nines is a simple

Stops family
for four or more players. It is largely a game of luck, and is suitable for players of any age. Games with more than four players are best when played without hesitation. It has a modern variant called Pink Nines.

History

Games of the Stops family trace their history back to the 17th century French game of

stops. It was this final stage that evolved into the much simpler game of Manille which was renamed Comet on the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1682,[1] because the run of cards resembled a comet.[2] In this game, the 9♦ was called the Manille or Comet and was a wild card. The entire pack was dealt to between three and five players and the aim was to empty one's hand by playing cards out in sequence up to the King, suits being irrelevant.[2] In 1752, a variant called "New Comet" appeared which used two packs divided for play into a pack of red cards and a pack of black cards and in which the 9♣ became the wild card in the red pack.[3] Comet may well have been played in royal circles in Britain as early as the 17th century, shortly after its renaming.[4][a]

Red Nines appears to be derived from the older version of Comet, but with the addition of the 9♥ as a wild card, the removal of certain cards from the pack, the dealing of cards to the table as 'stops' and a requirement to build in

suit sequence. Only the first change has been retained in the modern rules, which thus look very like 'ancient' Comet as it was called. It also resembles Pope Joan
, which also builds in sequences in suit and has the 9♦ as a special, albeit not wild, card.

Red Nines itself is an old game, recorded as early as 1812 in a diary entry by Miss Fanny Chapman of

Holme Lee's Ashburn Rectory in 1858.[7] The first account of its rules appeared in 1881.[8] The game was still well known enough in Britain in 1908 to be mentioned without explanation in a novel Lady Julia's Emerald as being played by well to do young folk.[9] It is known to have been played in south-west London during the 1950s.[citation needed
]

Pink Nines appears to be a 20th-century variant played as early as 1930 and still listed in games compendia.[b]

Red Nines (1881)

The following description is based on H.K. (1881).[8]

Overview

Red Nines is a

play
are clockwise and the deal rotates to the left after each game.

Equipment

A standard 52-card pack is used with the 2s and 3s removed to leave 44 cards. The red nines – 9♥ and 9♦ – are wild. Players receive e.g. 36 counters which are worth an agreed rate.

Deal

The cards are dealt singly and the first player to receive a

shuffles and has the cards cut
before dealing five cards to each player in turn and placing the remaining 4 cards face down on the table. Only the dealer may view the table cards.

Play

stops and allow a new sequence to be started.[c]
The sequences are arranged in rows with the cards overlapping.

If a sequence cannot be continued because the required card is one of the table cards, the dealer (who knows what they are) cries "stop" and the player of the last card may start a new sequence, just as if an Ace or King had been played.

A player who is able to play the two red Aces sweeps the contents of the Red Ace pool.

Winning and settlement of the score

The aim is to be first to shed all one's cards. The player who achieves this is the winner and receives from each other player 1 counter per card held or 2 counters if it is a red 9.

A player who goes out with a red 9 sweeps the Red Nine pool and receives double payment from the opponents and quadruple for the other red 9 if held in another player's hand.

Red Nines (20th century)

Overview

The aim is to have the lowest possible score by

play
, the value of the cards remaining in a player's hand counts against them. The player who ends the round by discarding the last of his or her cards scores zero in that round. Players play the number of rounds equal to the number of players. Deal and play are clockwise.

The main differences from the 19th century game are that:

  • No cards are removed from the pack; thus Aces are not stops
  • All cards are dealt and there are no table cards as stops
  • Suits are irrelevant
  • There are no pools or bonuses for 2 Aces or going out with a red 9

Cards

Four players use a complete

red suit
than black suits.

Deal

All the cards are dealt, so that each player has 13 cards.

Play

stop
. The next player then continues the sequence if able to do so, otherwise that player must miss a turn and play is continued by the first player able to lay the required card.

Players should announce their discards so that all players can follow what is happening easily; for example a player might say "Eight, nine, ten, jack, no queen". If the next player has a queen, it makes sense to lay it and if possible a king as well. Kings are stops (they stop the sequence) and so, one discarding a king, a player may start a new sequence at any number, including another king. Play continues until one player discards the last card in their hand or "goes out".

Sometimes no player will have the stop, everyone having announced e.g. "no Ten" (whatever the required card is). When this happens the player who was last able to discard plays again, beginning a fresh sequence at any point.

Red 9s

The red 9s (9♥ and 9♦) are

wild cards
and may be used to substitute for any card of a different rank. If a nine is the next number required in the ongoing sequence, a player with no nine other than a red one may say "no nine" and hold it in reserve. This could, however, be a risky strategy.

It is not necessary to announce the use of the red 9 to substitute for any other card. The player simply announces the card that the red 9 replaces as if it was that card. It is up to the other players to observe that a red 9 is being used.

First turn

Being the first to discard in a round confers a useful advantage, especially if the player has one or more aces. The player may, as stated above, play more than one card of the same rank initially. After this, no player may discard more than one card of the same rank at a time (although discarding a king and starting again with another king can give the appearance of laying more than one king as a discard).

Winning and scoring

Each player has one opportunity to be the first to discard, so the number of rounds equals the number of players. After the end of the final round all the scores are totalled and the player having the lowest score is declared the winner.

Each card from 2 to 10 scores its face value. Jacks score 11, queens 12 and kings 13. Aces, although representing 1 in the sequence, score 20.[f] If a player is caught with a red 9 in hand when another player goes out, the caught player's score is doubled. Two red 9s would quadruple the score. Conversely if the last card discarded by the player going out is a red 9 that player should announce "out on a red 9", and the scores of all the other players are doubled.

Pink Nines

Taylor and Parlett describe a game called Pink Nines which appears almost identical to 19th-century Red Nines. Virginia Woolf recalled playing it in 1930[10] and it was still played in England in the early 1970s when a magistrates court in Bletchley rejected an application for it to be played for money in a pub because "no one knew what it was" and the chairman of the bench saying that "it might be something we would deplore later on."[11]

Pink Nines is only described by Taylor (1974) and Parlett (2008).

Ancient Comet.[12]

Pink Nines has the same two wild cards – 9♥ and 9♦. Players

stake to a pool, no cards are removed from the pack, four are dealt face down to the table and the rest are equally divided between the players with any remainder being added to the table stops. Play is as in classic Red Nines except that suits are disregarded and Aces, not Kings, are high. If all pass, the last to play starts a new sequence. The first player to shed all cards wins the pool.[12]

In Taylor's account, two or three players are dealt 13 cards and the rest left on the table. If four or more play, four cards are dealt to a

blind and the rest distributed among the players.[11]

Strategy

Success in Red Nines is mainly determined by luck rather than skill, although there are some opportunities for strategic decisions to be made. In general it is desirable to discard higher scoring cards when starting a sequence, especially an ace even if the player has no two (“ace, no two”). Deciding when to play a red 9 can make a big difference–they can be very valuable to fill in a gap, but getting caught with one should be avoided.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ In response to a question about the origin of the nickname of the 9♦ as the 'curse of Scotland', a correspondent of The Gentleman's Magazine in 1786, states that "when the Duke of York (a little before his succession to the crown) came to Scotland, he and his suite introduced a new game, there called 'comet,' where the ninth of diamonds is an important card. The Scots who were to learn the game felt it to their cost; and from that circumstance the ninth of diamonds was nicknamed the 'curse of Scotland'." This appears to refer to James II, formerly the Duke of York, who ascended the throne in 1685.
  2. ^ For example, see Parlett (2008), p. 441.
  3. ^ Aces are stops of course because the 2s and 3s have been removed.
  4. ^ Presumably suits are irrelevant.
  5. ^ It is not clear whether each card starts a separate sequence.
  6. ^ An alternative simpler scoring convention, favoured by American players, is for the jacks, queens and kings each to score 10 and the ace 11.

References

  1. ^ Parlett (1991), p. 118.
  2. ^ a b _ (1718), pp. 153–159.
  3. ^ _ (1752), p. 215ff.
  4. ^ The Gentleman's Magazine (1786), Part II, p. 538.
  5. ^ Chapman (1812), entries for Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November 1812.
  6. ^ Colburn's United Service Magazine and Naval and Military Journal (1849), p. 113.
  7. ^ Lee (1858), p. 134.
  8. ^ a b H.K. (1881), pp. 46–47.
  9. ^ Wylde (1908), p. 98.
  10. ^ Woolfe (1930), p. 241.
  11. ^ a b c Taylor (1974), pp. 21–22.
  12. ^ a b c Parlett (1990), p. 117.

Bibliography

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