How to play Trix
Trix is a four-player trick-taking card game from the Levant and the Gulf. All 52 cards are dealt out evenly, thirteen to a hand, and play moves to the right.
Play Trix now in your browser — free, nothing to installThe Contracts
- King of Hearts — avoid capturing it: −75 points, or −150 if it was declared doubled beforehand. Forced to unload a declared King onto an opponent instead of catching your own? You earn +25.
- Queens — avoid capturing any of the four: −25 points each, −50 for one declared doubled. Forcing a doubled Queen out of its holder's hand, or being the one who has to unload it onto an opponent, earns +25.
- Diamonds — avoid capturing diamond cards: −10 points each.
- Slaps — avoid winning tricks at all: −15 points each.
- Complex — the four penalties above, all scored together in a single deal, played out to the last trick.
- Trix — no tricks at all. A jack opens its suit face-up on the table, and every other card extends a run outward from there, upward toward the ace or downward toward the two. Race to empty your hand first: 1st place takes 200, then 150, 100 and 50 for last. Can't play? Pass.
The King and the Reign
Whoever holds the seven of hearts deals first and becomes king. As king, you choose one of your five contracts to play; once you have played all five, the crown passes to the player on your right. The match ends once every seat has been king — five contracts a reign, twenty a match.
Doubles
Before a King of Hearts or Queens deal, you may turn one eligible card face-up to double its penalty for whoever ends up holding it — a real gamble, since the bonus for shedding it goes to whoever forces it out of your hand, not to you.
Partners
North and South play as one side, East and West the other. A side's score is its two seats' totals combined, and every bonus or penalty above is reasoned about the same way — dropping a declared card on your own partner earns nothing, because it never actually left your side.