Heart of Five (红心五)

Heart of Five is a multiplayer playing card game. A player wins by discarding all their cards first, a player loses by having cards at the end.

Players and Cards

This game is best played with 4 players, but could be played with 2 to N players. After 6 players, more decks can be added to keep things interesting.

A standard 52 card deck plus 2 jokers are required. More than 1 deck maybe used if there are more than 4 players.

Game Play and Winning

Deal entire deck of cards evenly to all players.
The player who obtains the Three of Hearts starts the first round, otherwise the previous round winner should start. The lead player establishes the required meld for the other players.
Each player takes turns discarding melds if they can make a matching meld stronger than the previous player's meld or may choose to pass if they cannot form a larger meld or chooses to keep the cards for later in the round.
When all players pass, the player with the most recent discard can start a new meld resetting the style and minimum value for the other players. Go to step #3 until a player discards all their cards.
First player to discard all their cards wins the round. Remaining players still decide to play a meld or pass their turn. If all players pass, the next turn defaults to the player immediately after the round winner. Play continues until all players are out of cards. The last player with cards remaining loses the round.
Continue to step #1 until a player wins 10 rounds or there's no more time to play. Wins and loses are traditionally tallied separately.

Rules of the Meld

A player can only discard if they can compose a set of cards, known as a meld, the same type as the lead player. The only time a style can change is via a bomb or a new leader is established.

Styles of Melds

Single Card
Two of a Kind
Three of a Kind
Bomb (Four of a Kind)
Sisters
Full House
Runs (Straight)
Straight Flush (Another Bomb)

Single Card

A single lonely card. Only the rank of the card is important. The weakest card rank is 3 the strongest is 2. The complete order is: 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K A 2 jj JJ 5H. jj and JJ are Small Joker and Big Joker respectively. The name of the game is "Heart of Five" because the strongest single card play is the Five of Hearts.

Two of a Kind

Two cards of the same rank is a Two of a Kind. Jokers cannot be paired to form a Two of a Kind. The strongest pair is two twos. Sometimes it is advantageous to use a 5H in a Pair of Fives to discard the other five.

The cards' rank determines the strength.

Three of a Kind

Same as Two of a Kind but with three cards of the same rank.

The Bomb! (Four of a Kind)

Same as Two of a Kind but with four cards.

This meld is an exception to the style rule and that's why it's called The Bomb. The bomb is played as all four of the same rank of cards. 3C 3D 3H 3S. A fun use of bombing is after some one plays a 5H, they'll never see it coming! This is also why we notate bombs with !. For example: Q! is all four queens. When multiple decks are used Four of a Kind can be common and bombing can get pretty crazy.

After a bomb is played, another player may bomb with a higher rank.

It is possible to lead with a bomb, but what's the fun in that?!?

Sisters

Two or more Two of a Kinds. Where the rank of the cards are sequential. For instance: 3H 3D, 4H 4D. Three of a Kind may also be used. For instance: 3H 3D 3S, 4H 4D 4C. Four of a Kind could be used, too, but again, it's a waste of a bomb.

The rank of the highest pair/triple determines the strength of the meld.

Warning: Aces and Twos are low pairs because Run ranking is applied.

Full House

A Full House is a Two of a Kind plus a Three of Kind. The rank of the Three of the kind determines the strength.

Runs (Straight)

5 or more cards in rank sequence. When a player leads with a straight, the next players must use the same number of cards. The highest rank determines the strength. This is the only style where a 2 is considered a low rank.

The longest possible run is A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K A. Incidentally, it is possible to win a round instantly when leading with this meld.

Bomb!! Straight Flush (Another Bomb)

This meld is another exception to the style rule and is very rare indeed. A Straight Flush requires at least 5 cards in the meld. The 5 or more cards must be a Run and in the same suit. This is the only meld where the suit of the cards actually matter.

If there are more than 5 cards, it can be played on top of fewer cards. So a 6 card straight flush beats a 5 cards straight flush. 7 cards beat 6 and so on.

ANSI Hand Notation

Standard 52 Card Deck + 2 Jokers

Ranks: 2-9, 10 T, Jack J, Queen Q, King K, Ace A. For consistent character counts T is used instead of 10 to represent ten.

Suits: Club C, Diamonds D, Hearts H, Spades S

Specials: Small Joker jj, Big Joker JJ

Bomb: Instead of notating a bomb as 3C 3D 3H 3S we use 3! where the ! implies all 4 suits and looks cool!

Example Notation

AS = Ace of Spades
2D = Two of Diamonds
5H = Five of Hearts
5! = Bomb or Four of a Kind  or four fives
TC = Ten of Clubs

Sample Game Play

Players: Alice, Bob, Cat, and Dan

Cards are dealt.
Alice is the leader and start because she has the Three of Hearts 3H. She shows it to the other players because the others don't trust her, but doesn't have to use it.
Alice plays AS 2H 3H 4S 5C, a low run but helps her get rid of some cards.
Bob pass. He doesn't have a run with the same amount of cards or higher values.
Cat and Dan also pass.
Alice plays 3S, Bob plays 4C, Cat plays 5S, Dan plays 2H (Remember: 2 is bigger than A!).
Alice passes because she doesn't want to use her JJ, yet. Bob and Cat also pass.
Dan is the new leader. He can plays 3C 3D 4D 4H.
Alice passes. Bob plays JH JD QS QC, Cat plays QH QD KS KC, Alice now plays KH KD AH AC, they highest possible meld. Bob and Cat pass. Dan smiles and throws a bomb, 10!. Alice is discouraged because she really wanted to set the next meld.
Bob plays 6C 7C 8H 9H 10C and has no more cards left. Everyone else passes. Cat can lead with a new meld.
Play continues until Cat and Dan run out of cards, and poor Alice is the only once with cards remaining.
Bob tallies a win, Alice tallies a lose.
A new round is dealt and Bob gets to set the lead meld because he won the previous round.
Repeat until someone wins 10 rounds or it's too late and declare the person with the best grand total the winner.

ddrscott/heart_of_five.md