Twenty One Rules — How to Play and Keep Score

Setup

A standard fifty-two card deck with the jokers taken out, and seven cards each. The rest of the deck sits face down as the stock. Nothing needs agreeing before the first deal except the target — the card values are fixed.

The player to the dealer's left leads the first deal, and the deal moves one seat each time.

How to play

Before anything is played, the player who leads decides whether swapping is open this deal. If it is, every player may trade cards from their hand for the same number off the stock, once. A player who likes their hand says no for everybody, which is a decision worth thinking about — the swap helps the weak hands more than the strong ones.

The leader then plays either a single card or two cards of the same value. Whatever shape they chose is the shape of the whole trick: a lead of one card is answered with one card, a lead of two eights is answered with two cards of the same value.

Going round the table, each player in turn must play something higher than the last play, in the same shape. Two eights are beaten by two nines or better, never by a single ace.

If you cannot go higher, you must play your lowest card and it counts for nothing. With a pair led, you throw away your lowest single card the same way.

Matching the last play, rather than beating it, is allowed and takes the lead — so the last person to put down the highest cards, or cards equal to them, wins the trick. They pick up nothing; taking the trick simply means they lead the next one, and they may lead any shape they like.

Play continues until everybody is down to a single card. Those last cards are then turned over together.

Scoring

One number per player per deal, and most of them are zero.

• Every player turns over the single card they were left holding.
• The highest of them scores its own value. An ace is worth 11, a jack, queen or king is worth 10, and every other card is worth what it says. Eleven is therefore the most a single deal can be worth.
• Everybody else scores 0 for that deal.
• If two players are left holding the same top value, they each score it.

So a deal ending with Anna holding an ace, Ben a nine, Cara a three and Dan a jack gives Anna 11 and everybody else nothing.

Because a picture card and an ace come to exactly twenty-one, two good deals win the game — which is where the name comes from.

The running total is the sum of a player's deals. Nothing about the trick play is written down — how many tricks you took has no effect on the score, and it is common to win most of the tricks and score nothing at all, because winning a trick spends the cards you needed at the end.

Ending the game

The game ends at the end of the deal in which any player's total reaches twenty-one, and the highest total wins. A deal is worth at most eleven, so two good ones do it, and a player on eleven is one picture card from the finish. Tables that want a longer evening raise the target.

If two players finish level on the highest total, they share the win.

Common variations

Everybody scores their last card. Instead of only the best card counting, every player scores whatever they are left with. It changes the endgame completely: the pressure moves from steering one big card home to not being caught with the smallest, and the target usually has to go up to fifty or so to compensate.

No swapping. The deal is the deal. It makes the first lead much more powerful and shortens the whole game.

Passing instead of dumping. A player who cannot beat the lead simply passes and keeps their hand. Good cards then last much longer, tricks get shorter, and the final cards are far more even — most tables find it slower without being more interesting.

Ace low. The ace becomes the worst card in play and worth a single point at the end. Kings then decide most deals, and being dealt an ace is a genuine problem rather than a gift.