3-5-8 Rules

How to play?

The game by 3 players. The following cards should be used:

  • French deck with 52 cards in it.
  • Ordered by strength (from strongest to weakest), the cards in each suit are as follows: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.

The dealer for the first hand is selected randomly; for the next hands, it is the next player in the direction of play. The cards are dealt and played in the following direction: counter-clockwise.

Dealing

The dealing goes as follows:

  1. The dealer gives a total of 16 cards to each player (dealing all the cards, except 4 cards).
  2. The dealer leaves the last 4 cards face-down on the table to form a kitty.

The target is the minimum number of tricks each player should make. Targets are determined by each player’s seat for that hand as follows:

  • Dealer: 3
  • Player on the left: 5
  • Player on the right (the first): 8

After the dealing, it is followed the following order:

  1. Announcing contract
  2. Exchanging cards with the other players
  3. Exchanging cards from kitty

When a suit contract is announced the players exchange cards as follows:

  • In the first round there is no exchange.
  • Each player who had “+” in the previous round, gives a card for every point to the next player who had “-“.
  • When having a stronger card from the required suit, the ‘-‘ player must return the strongest.
  • When having only weaker cards, or no cards from the required suit, the ‘-‘ player must return the request card.
  • If 2 players had “+”, the first who makes exchange is the one with a higher target.

Announcing

The rules for announcing are as follows:

  • The player with the 8-tricks target (who plays first) should choose and announce the contract.
  • The available announcements for the Blato variant are: Spades, Diamonds, Hearts. Spades, No Trump, or Pass.Each player can make the Pass announcement only once during a session. When the announcer choose Pass, the cards are dealt again without changing the order of playing.

Exchange cards from the kitty
The 4 cards from the kitty should be shown to all players. The announcer takes them, and then selects 4 cards to discard. The other players should not see the discarded cards.

Playing the cards

After the cards are dealt and the trump suit is determined, the players play the cards using the following rules:

  • Players place cards on the table in the direction of play
  • For the first trick, the first card should be played by the announcer.
  • For the next tricks, the first card should be played by the player who won the previous trick.

The rules for each trick are as follows:

  • The first played card for the trick can be any card.
  • It is required to answer the suit of the card played in the first turn.If the players don’t have a card from the required suit, they have to play any trump card they want. If they don’t have trump cards, they can play any card they want. When the required suit is not trump it is not required to play a stronger card.
  • And if the required suit is trump, the players must play a stronger trump card (if they have such card). If they have only weaker trump cards they should play one of them (to answer the required suit). If they have no trump cards, they can play any card they want.
  • If somebody trumps and the next player doesn’t have cards from the required suit, the player has to play a stronger trump card. If he doesn’t have such card, he can play any card he wants.
  • A trick is won by the player who played the strongest trump card. If there are no trumps played, the trick is won by the player who placed the strongest card from the suit of the first card played in the trick.

Scoring

After all 16 tricks have been played, scores and targets are compared and players who won more tricks than their target are UP by the number of excess tricks, while players who fell short of their target are DOWN by a number of tricks.

For example, of player has target 3:

  • Take 3 tricks for the round: 0 points.
  • Take 5 tricks for the round: 2 points.
  • Take 1 tricks for the round: -2 points.

The session ends after 9 rounds. The winner is the player with the highest score.
If a session ends with 2 or 3 players having the same score, then the winner should be determined by checking the conditions below until one of them is met:

  1. The player who won more points in the last hand.
  2. When all three players have the same number of points, the winner is the player who won the last trick in the last hand.
  3. When two players have the same number of points, the winner is the player who most recently won a trick (for example, the 16th trick, or the 15th trick, and so on).