Description

Jazz (sometimes spelled Jass) is a game played with a traditional deck of cards, not to be confused with the Swiss game by the same name played with a special 36-card jass deck. The ideal number of players is four, but it can be adapted for three or five by removing one or two of the number 2 cards for a total of 51=3*17 or 50=5*10 cards.

The game is a fixed collection of several short games and the winner is the player with the lowest total score. There are slight variants of the exact composition of included games and the scoring, however all but one are always trick-taking games while the last one is a variant of the game Fan Tan. All games start by dealing the entire deck so that each player receives the same number of cards. Common for all the trick-taking games is the requirement to follow suit if possible. The player of the highest card (ace being the highest) in that suit takes the trick and starts the next one. If a player lacks cards in the suit on the table he plays any one card of his own choice.

Most Jazz variants consist of a selection of four to six of the following trick-taking games plus the final game of Fan Tan. The provided suggested penalty points provide for a balanced four-person game.

1. "Spades" or "Clubs"
A trick-taking game where the aim is to avoid taking cards of the specified suit. (2p each)

2a. "Tricks", "Zero", or "Minus"
Take as few tricks as possible. (2p each)
2b. "Plus"
Take as many tricks as possible. (-2p each) This seems to be a rare variant to include.

3. "Honors"
Avoid taking honor cards, i.e. 10, J, Q, and K. (2p each)

4a. "Jacks"
4b. "Queens"
Depending on the variant, one should avoid taking either jacks or queens. (5p each) Some variants play both the Jacks and the Queens games one after the other, others play only one of them.

5. "King of Hearts and the Final Trick"
Avoid taking the very last trick as well as the king of hearts card. Some variants also give penalty points for the fifth trick. (10p each, sometimes with an extra penalty for taking the king of hearts as part of the final trick.)

6. "Solitaire", "Seven", "Fan Tan"
The final game is Fan Tan or a version thereof. One common rule specifies that the player having the 7 of diamonds always goes first by playing this card while another variant is started by normal clock-wise order and with any number seven card. The starting player is often allowed/required to play an additional card if possible. In each suit the 7 is played first followed by the 8 on one side and as the third card the 6 on the other side of the 7. As soon as these three cards have been played the ascending (9-K) and descending (5-A) runs of the suit are played independently of one another on top of the 8 and 6 cards. A player has to play one and only one card on his turn if possible. The game ends when a player runs out of cards. The other players score 3p for each remaining card of their own.