Mendikot — win the tens
A trick-taking game where only the four tens matter. Partners sitting opposite try to capture tens in the tricks they win. Taking all four is a mendikot.
From Mendikot, a partnership card game of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
What it shows a designer
Trick-taking with a single prize: the tens. It shows how a game can strip a big system down to one thing to fight over, and how partnerships form a silent conversation through the cards played.
Credits
- Made by
- Traditional, western India
- This version
- Open trump, and a match of first to 3 points
- Sources
- www.pagat.com/pointtrk/mendikot.html
What you need
- one standard deck of cards
- paper for points
How to play
- Deal. Partners sit opposite. Before dealing, show a random card from the shuffled pack: its suit is trump. Put it back, shuffle, and deal all 52 cards, 13 to each player.
- A trick. The player to the dealer's right leads any card; play goes anticlockwise. Each player must play a card of the suit led if they can; if not, any card.
- Who wins a trick. The highest trump wins; if no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led. The winner takes the four cards and leads the next trick.
- Score the deal. After 13 tricks, the team holding three or four tens wins the deal. If the tens split two and two, the team with seven or more tricks wins it.
- Mendikot. Winning all four tens is a mendikot and scores 2 points; any other won deal scores 1. The first team to 3 points wins.
After playing, talk about
- When did you play a ten, and when did you hold it back?
- How did you read what your partner held?
- Why might only the tens count?
Its blocks
Download it as a design (.md)In boardgameBuilder, Open game puts its blocks on the canvas. Changed, the same file can come back here from Propose a game.