How To Play 29 Card Game

People love to socialise over card games since historical times. That is why many versions of card games have evolved over time in almost all parts of the world. As the world went online, these popular card games quickly became integral to online gambling websites like Babu88.

The card game 29 is massively popular in the South Asian region, especially India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Read on if you want to know all about 29 card game and understand how the game is played.

29 Card Game: A Short Introduction

29 is said to be a variation of ‘Pinochle’, a game popular in European countries. Many people also attribute 29 to being a descendant of the Jass family of card games, which was brought to India by the Dutch traders.

The game is played among four players in two teams. Two people facing each other are partners. A 52-card playing deck is used, where each number on the card has a specific number of points. The general goal of the game is to accumulate points, and the maximum a team can have is 29 points.

This is a trick-taking game. A trick is one round of the game played by each of the four players, and each player sends one card in a trick. The player with the highest valued card in a trick would take the trick and the points a team gains are totalled at the last to declare the winner.

Cards & Values

Although 29 uses the standard playing card deck, not all cards are used. At the start of the game, 2,3,4,5,6 face value cards of all suits are discarded, and only the remaining 32 cards are used.

The order of the remaining cards for every suit ranked from high to low is as follows: Jack>Nine>Ace>Ten>King>Queen>Eight>Seven.

The 6s indicate the final game score; each team will have a 6 from the red and one from the black suit. The 2, 3, 4, and 5 discarded cards are simply used to indicate the trump suit, with all suits of a specific number, say four 2s dealt to one player, 3s to the next one, and so on.

The card points are calculated as follows for the final score.

Card	Point
Jacks	3 points each
Nines	2 points each
Aces	1 point each
Tens	1 point each
King, Queen, Eight, Seven	Zero points

If you combine all the card points, you have a total of 28, with the team playing the last card in the trick earns an extra point, which eventually leads to 29. Nowadays, some versions of the game have foregone the final point rule.

Setup & Deal Phase

During the setup phase, the dealer shuffles the deck and hands out four cards each to all the players in a clockwise direction. This concludes the initial deal phase, and players can now start bidding to choose the ‘Trump suit.”

A player bids on the number of points they believe they can earn in the game as a team. The minimum bid amount is 15, and the maximum is 28. The highest bidder in the game gets to choose the trump suit.

The bidding opportunity is first given to the player on the dealer’s left. A player can either bid or pass; if they pass, the next player gets the chance to bid. The initial bid can either be increased or passed. If the player believes they do not have many good high-value cards, they are likely to pass.

This process continues until three players pass consecutively; at this point, the highest bidder wins. If no player makes a bid, the bidding is automatically set to 15.

After the bidding phase is completed, the player who won the bid can choose the ‘Trump suit’, with the help of discarded cards- 2, 3, 4, or 5. The player will move the trump suit card to the bottom of the discarded four cards face down.

Now, the actual game starts. The dealer hands out four more cards to each player, meaning all the players have eight cards. The players will keep their cards hidden from other players.

Playing Phase

The player to the left of the dealer starts the game. They can start with any random high-valued card, say J, and the game moves on to the next player. All players must match the suit on the initial card. If they do not have a similar suit in their hand, they would ask the bidder to reveal the ’Trump Suit’ card.

If the player has a trump suit card, it is played. If a player does not have a Trump suit card, they can just play any random card, and the round continues.

The winner of the trick is declared as follows:

• If a trump suit card is not played, the player with the highest-value card wins.
• If a Trump suit card is played, it can overrule all cards, and the player who plays it wins the trick.

In the case of two players playing the trump card, the highest-value trump card is the winner. This process continues until all the eight rounds are played.

Royal & Flush Rule

The Royal Flush is a unique situation during the game. After the trump card is revealed, if a player happens to have the king and queen cards of the trump suit, they must declare it by calling out ‘Royal.’ It can only be done after the team wins a trick.

• If a member of the bidding team announces “royal” their initial bid is reduced by 4 points as long as it remains above 15 points.
• If the other team has the royal pair, the initial bid value is increased by 4, not exceeding 28 points.

Scoring 

Once all eight rounds have been completed, both teams count the points based on the cards they have. The card points are added up, with one additional point going to the team that played the last card in the trick.

If the team with the highest bid has points exceeding the bid value, they get a positive game point, otherwise, they get a negative.

For a positive score, the team shows a 6 from the red suit and keeps it to the side, and a negative score is represented by the 6 of the black suit.

The game is won when one of the teams accumulates six game points. However, if a team has a total of minus 6 game points, they lose the game.

To Conclude

Anyone new to 29 can start the game with the rules mentioned above. Since the game rules are a little complicated, you need to practise. You can use strategies like counting cards of the tricks already closed to have a better chance of winning the game.

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