Trix is a four-player card game, played either in partnership or individually. First, we will explain the rules of Trix (played individually) and then we will explain the difference between playing individually and playing in teams.

Cards and Dealing

Trix is played by four people using one deck of cards (52 cards, excluding jokers). The game is divided into 4 kingdoms, each kingdom includes 5 contracts, the kingdom owner decides to play the contracts in whatever order he/she desires.

In the beginning, players pick the dealer randomly, the dealer shuffles the cards well and deals out 13 cards to each player. The player who gets the 7 of hearts in this first deal owns the first “kingdom”. the player picks whatever contract he/she wants, and when the cards are all played, points are scored, cards are dealt out once again, player picks another contract, and so on until all five contracts are done.

Then, the kingdom passes to the player who sits to the right of the first player, the same is repeated until four kingdoms are done which declares the end of the game and the player or the team with the highest score wins.

The cards in each suit rank from high to low: A-K-Q-J-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2

Kingdoms & Game Play

King of hearts

Queens

Diamonds

"Ltoosh"

Trix

The first four kingdoms are played similarly, the kingdom owner leads to the first trick and other players must follow suit if they can, if they can’t, they are allowed to play any other suit, the player who plays the highest card of the suit led collects the trick and leads next.

Players must avoid collecting tricks depending on the kingdom announced:

- King of hearts: players must avoid collecting (K) of hearts.

- Queens: Players must avoid collecting (Q) of any suit.

- Diamonds: players must avoid collecting cards of diamonds.

-  "Ltoosh": players must avoid collecting tricks in general.

-   Trix: is the only contract that is not a trick-taking game, Players try to get rid of their cards as soon as they can by playing them to a layout on the board, which begins with the jacks, and continues upwards in each suit to the ace and downwards to the 2. Players can’t add any card to the board unless this card is one rank higher or lower than a card that has already been played.

A player must play any card they have which can be added but if they are unable to play, they pass.

Doubling

In both King of hearts and Queens , the player who owns the (K) of hearts or a (Q) of any suit can double its value by revealing it on the board to the other players, which means that if another player collects it when it is "doubled" they are reduced double the standard value, and the player who did the doubling gets the standard value of the card as additional points.

Scoring

  • King of hearts: the player who collected the (K) of hearts card is reduced 75 points.
  • Queens: players who collect (Q) cards are reduced 25 points for each card collected.
  • Diamonds: players who collect cards of diamonds are reduced 10 points for each card collected.
  • "Ltoosh": players who collect any trick are reduced 15 point for each trick collected.
  • Trix: the first player finishes gains 200 points, the second finishes gains 150 points, the third finishes gains 100 and the last gets gains 50 points, depending on who runs out of cards first.

Trix partnership

The only difference between Trix and Trix Partner is that it’s played in teams, each two players who are seated across each other are considered a team and their points are summed up together at the end of the game in order to pick the winner.