Twenty-Two

Twenty-Two is a simple round game for two or more players. There is no maximum number of players, but over 6, you need to add a second deck of cards. It is a trick-taking game in which the winner of the last trick is penalized.

Suits are irrelevant in this game.

The players look at their cards, and starting at dealer’s left, each in turn (in clockwise order) has one opportunity to discard cards face down and receive an equal number of cards in exchange from the top of the undealt portion of the pack.

Then, the first player leads to the trick. When playing to a trick there are two possibilities:

You may equal or beat the highest card or set of cards played to the trick so far.

If you cannot or do not wish to equal or beat the highest play, you must play the lowest cards in your hand.

The trick ends when everyone has played to it, and it is won by the highest play, or by the last of highest equal plays.

The winner of the trick leads to the next, and may again lead a single card or a set of equal ranked cards, but you must keep back at least one card even if all your remaining cards are equal.

Scoring

When everyone is down to just one card, all players show their last card, and whoever has the highest card loses. This high card is kept face up in front of the loser for the rest of the game, to show that player’s score. A player whose scoring cards add up to 22 or more points is eliminated from the game.

Based on the public domain game Cucumber