Old MacDonald

This game is based on Phat, a Scottish member of the All Fours family (whose members include Pitch, Pedro, and Don). Twenty-one tricks are played each hand; the object is to peg points on a Cribbage board for capturing valuable cards. The game end is triggered when someone pegs 180 (or more) points. The hand is completed and the player with the higher score wins. The game is quite simple to teach as it uses standard must-follow trick-taking. To increase balance, one player will pick a trump suit and the other player will pick the rank order (which cards are high or low). What elevates the game is its distribution of card points among the ranks; in particular, trying to avoid giving up the high Phat points for capturing the middle-ranking 9s makes for some interesting and sometimes quite tense decisions.