Thirty-one (card game)

Thirty-one (French Trente et un) is a gambling card game played by two to seven people, where players attempt to assemble a hand which totals 31. Such a goal has formed the whole or part of various games like Commerce, Cribbage, Trentuno, and Wit and Reason since the 15th century.

The game is also known as Big Tonka, Nickel Nock, Blitz, Clinker, Klinker, Skat, Cadillac in south Louisiana and Mississippi, Cad in Pennsylvania, Whammy! in central Indiana, and as Skedaddle, Snip Snap Snoop, Schnautz and Schnitzel in other countries.

The object is to obtain a hand with a value total as close as possible to 31, from which the name of the game is taken. The game is usually best played with at least four players.

Thirty-one uses a standard deck of 52 playing cards. Aces are high, counting 11, face cards count 10, and all other cards count face value. Each player gets a hand of three cards. The rest of the deck sits in the middle of the table as stock for the game, and the top card of the stock is turned over to begin the discard. Players keep track of how many games they have lost by folding the corners of a five-dollar note. The five-dollar note is also their stake in the game. This can be substituted with other denominations or currency.

After the hands in the first round are dealt, play proceeds as in Gin rummy, with each player, starting with the player to the immediate left of the dealer and going clockwise around the table, taking the top card of either the stock or the discard and subsequently discarding a card. All players are trying to collect a hand value of 31 (or the nearest to it without exceeding 31) in the same suit. If a player has three cards of the same value from different suits, the hand is worth 30. Play continues clockwise around the table until any player knocks or obtains a blitz.

When it is a player's turn, and that player believes their hand is high enough to beat at least one of the opponents, they knock on the table in lieu of drawing and discarding. All other players, going clockwise from the player who knocked, have one more turn to draw from the stock and discard, or they have the option of keeping all three cards in their hands, known as standing. The round ends when the player to the right of the player who knocked has had a final turn. If no one knocks by the time a player exhausts the stock, the round ends in a draw. Because knocking relies on the confidence that the player will not have the lowest score, a skilled player may memorise which suits the other players are discarding. If a player discards a different suit than that which he discarded his previous turn, it can be inferred that the player is "changing suits". Changing suits puts a player at a distinct disadvantage because the resulting lowered score raises the risk that another player may knock.

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Wikipedia