Xeri

What You Need

• A standard 52-card deck, no jokers.
• Pen and paper. Games are scored by rounds, or up to 151 points.

Setup

1. Choose a dealer. The deal alternates each round.
2. Deal 6 cards to each player.
3. Deal 4 cards face up to the table, one on top of the other, as a single pile. The fourth card is the top card.
4. If the top card is a jack, or the top two cards share a rank, shuffle those 4 cards back into the deck and deal a new table pile.
5. Keep the rest of the deck face down as the talon.
6. When both hands are empty, deal 6 more to each player. The table pile stays as it is. A 52-card deck gives four rounds of 6 cards.

How a Turn Works

The table is one pile, and only the top card matters. That is the whole game.

1. The non-dealer plays first. Turns alternate.
2. Play one card face up onto the table pile.
3. If your card matches the rank of the card on top of the pile, you capture the entire pile. Take it all, face down.
4. A jack captures the entire pile whatever the top card is, as long as the pile is not empty.
5. Otherwise your card stays on top of the pile and becomes the new target.
6. Captured cards sit face down. Do not look through them until the round ends.

You must play a card every turn. You cannot hold back a capture that your played card makes.

Xeri

When the pile holds exactly one card and you capture it with a card of the same rank, that is a xeri. It is worth 10 points. Store the captured card face up and crosswise under your capture pile so you can count xeris later.

A jack taking a lone card is not a xeri. There is one exception. A jack capturing a lone jack is a xeri, and it is worth 20 points.

An empty table gives no capture at all. A card played onto nothing starts the new pile, and the next player gets a shot at a xeri.

End of the Round

When the talon and both hands are empty, any cards left in the table pile go to the player who made the last capture. Then score.

Scoring

• Most cards captured earns 3 points. If each player has exactly 26, nobody scores.
• Each ace, king, queen, jack and 10 is 1 point (20 total).
• The 10 of diamonds gets 1 extra point, so 2 in all.
• The 2 of clubs is 1 point.
• Each xeri is 10 points. A jack-on-jack xeri is 20 points.

That is 25 card points per round, plus xeris.

Winning

Play an agreed number of rounds. The player who wins more rounds wins the match. Or keep a running total. The first player to reach 151 points at the end of a round wins. If both reach 151 in the same round, play on until one of you reaches 251.

Strategy Tips

• Play from a pair. If you hold two 5s, play one. Only two other 5s exist, and your opponent must hold one of them to capture.
• After a capture the table is empty, and your next card is a xeri target. Play something you hold twice, or a rank whose other copies are already gone.
• Save jacks for big piles. A jack on a two-card pile is a waste.
• The 10 of diamonds is worth 12 points if you take it as a xeri. Watch for it.

Variations

• Some players score 25 points instead of 20 for a jack-on-jack xeri.
• Some do not count the dealer's very last card of the round as a xeri.
• Four players form two partnerships, partners opposite each other. Play goes anticlockwise and partners share one capture pile.