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The game is ideal for a group of 4 to 10 people; the more players you have to participate in the game, the better the game will go. With its clear objective, slight level of difficulty and requirement for concentration and competitive thinking, the Queen of Spades card game is an especially good game if you have a very energetic group of players. Newmarket is a card game of luck which revolves around betting money on four horses and hoping that your horse comes in. The game is suitable for the whole family, even young children. The only issue that young children will have is being able to hold the cards in a fan. Newmarket Card Game. 21 October 2015 at 1:17PM edited 30 November -1 at 12:00AM in The Money Savers Arms. 6 replies 6K views WantToBeSE Forumite.
- Introduction: A family game
Introduction: A family game
Newmarket is a hand shedding game that relies almost entirely on luck. This makes it a fun game for parties, and it is intended for larger groups. While the game can be played with only three players, it is much more enjoyable with groups of six to eight. THE CARDS & THE DEAL.
Newmarket is a card game of luck which revolves around betting money on four horses and hoping that your horse comes in. The game is suitable for the whole family, even young children. The only issue that young children will have is being able to hold the cards in a fan. I have distinctive memories of playing Newmarket when I was little, using my chair to lay my hand of cards out on and standing up to play. If the rest of the family could see my cards, they pretended they couldn't. It's a good game to teach children about suits and consecutive numbers and card recognition. Plus, the thrill of winning matchsticks or whatever you're using to lay bets is a big draw for children.
How to play
Round Preparation
A single deck of cards is used for play, but you also need four extra cards from another deck – a jack, queen, king and ace in four different suits – these are the four horses and go in the centre of the table. It doesn't really matter which card is of which suit, you could have a jack of clubs, queen of diamonds, king of spades and ace of hearts, for example. Newmarket works best with 3-5 players, though you can play with 2 or 6. Shuffle all the cards, then when dealing them out, create one more hand than there are players in the game – this is the dummy hand. The dummy hand is dealt to the player to the left of the dealer, so that this player has two hands.
Each player has their own stash of coins or matchsticks. You could start with 10 or 12 each, the size of each player's pot will determine the length of the game – more money = longer game. Each round, before looking at your hand, you must each put one matchstick in the middle (for the ante) and one on one of the four horses.
Now pick up your cards and sort your cards into suits and into ascending numbers within each suit – if you skip the hand organisation bit, you're likely to miss plays, which will scupper your chances of winning. At this point, the player with the dummy hand can decide whether they want to keep their own hand or switch for the dummy and discard their original hand. If they decide to keep their own hand, the player to their left may pay for the dummy hand. If they don't want it, the opportunity moves to the next player, and so on.
The Play
Newmarket Card Game Wikipedia
The player with the 2 of clubs, lays it down on the table in front of themselves and says clearly 'Two of Clubs'. Play doesn't move around in a clockwise order. Instead, the player with the 3 of clubs now plays it, laying it down just in front of themselves and saying 'Three of Clubs'. Play continues with each consecutive number within that suit until play comes to a halt and a card is missing. Remember, some cards are in the discarded hand, which will cause gaps in the runs. So, for example, if the 4 of clubs is in the discarded hand, play will pause.
The active player (the one that most recently played a card), then switches and plays their lowest card of the other colour. In this case, we're looking for the lowest red card in that player's hand… 'Five of Hearts'. Play continues, now with players ascending in the hearts. When play halts because a card is in the discarded hand, the active player switches to their lowest black card and so on. If the active player is required to play their lowest black card, but they have no black cards in hand, then the player to their left plays their lowest black instead.
When you are able to put down a card which matches one of the horses, you claim all the money on that horse. The first player to get all their cards out wins all the money in the ante and the round ends immediately. Any money that is left unclaimed on horses at the end of the round stays there for the following round. The job of the dealer rotates clockwise to the next player and the cards are shuffled and re-dealt.
Game End
As a family game, we would usually stop playing when one player has no matchsticks remaining. Though I expect that the original version of the game works more like poker with that player being eliminated from the game and the others continuing until there's just one left standing. That's not much fun for a family, however, and whenever we've played, when someone is out, we usually just give them a load more dosh. It's about playing together, after all, not about winning.
Final thoughts
I don't usually recommend games that are so reliant on luck and where players have such limited choices, but there's something special about Newmarket. I think it's the sense of anticipation. Even if you're seemingly trailing, with more cards remaining in hand than other players, it's quite possible to strike a run of plays that enables you to zoom up from behind and snatch the pot. Even though my boys are now both teenagers and usually favour much more complicated strategic games, they still ask to play this one.
Looking for new games to play with the family? Check out the Dark Imp games – all designed for families.
Newmarket Card Game Horses
We specialise in creating original family games. You'll find our Online Shop packed with options! If you love card games like Newmarket, you will also love Top Cake – a card game in which you bid on layers of cake, which you stack into point-winning showstoppers.
In The Dark Imp Blog you'll find all sorts of games you can play at home with regular playing cards or just with pen & paper. If you're looking for other great games to play with the family, try Racing Demon. It's fast, it's frantic and it's fun…. but you'll need a lot of packs of cards!
This ‘How to play' video is one of the most watched videos on The Dark Imp YouTube channel. Subscribe to the channel to see new videos as soon as they come out.
- Michigan Rummy / Three in One
Introduction
This game is also known as Boodle, Stops or (in Britain) Newmarket and is suitable for about 3 to 8 players. It is a fairly simple stops game in which the aim is to get rid of your cards first, and to win stakes by playing particular cards.
There is a variation called Three in One in which before the stops part, each player selects 5 cards from their hand and plays a game of Poker with them. That version is also known as Michigan Rummy, though according the books 'Michigan Rum' is actually rummy game - a version of 500 Rum.
Cards and Layout
A standard 52 card deck is used. The cards in each suit rank from lowest to highest: 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-J-Q-K-A.
During the game stakes are placed on a layout. This can be a board or cloth, or can be made by laying out cards from a second deck on which the stakes are placed. The layout consists of areas representing the following cards:
These are sometimes called the pay cards or boodle cards.
Placing Stakes and Dealing
Before the deal, the dealer places two chips on each boodle card and the other players put one chip on each.
The deal is clockwise, and the turn to deal passes to the left after each hand. The dealer deals one hand to each player and one spare hand. All of the cards are dealt out one at a time; some players will have one card more than others, but this does not matter. The players look at their cards, and the spare hand is left face down and not used in the game.
The Play
All plays are made by placing a card face up on the table in front of you. The different players' cards are not mixed together but are kept in front of the person who played them until the end of the play.
The person to the left of the dealer begins. They can play any suit, but must play the lowest card they hold in that suit. Whoever has the next higher card of the same suit must now play it, followed by the holder of the card after that, and so on until either the ace is reached or no one can play because no one holds the next higher card of the suit (it might be in the spare hand or have been played earlier). A card which no one can follow, because no one has the next higher card in that suit, is called a stop card.
The last person who played a card (the ace or the stop card) now starts again. Again they can play any suit but must play the lowest card they hold in that suit.
During the play, anyone who manages to play a card which matches one of the boodle cards takes all the chips on that card.
As soon as any player runs out of cards, the play ends. All the other players must pay one chip for each card remaining in their hand. The player who ran out of cards collects all of these chips.
Any chips remaining on the layout stay there for the next hand.
Newmarket Card Game Instructions
Variations
Newmarket Card Game Online
Some play that when starting again after a stop or and ace, you must if possible play a card of a different suit from the one that was just played. If you can't play a different suit, there are two views as to what happens:- If you have no option, you can play the same suit.
- If you have nothing but cards of the suit that was just played, the turn to play passes to the next player to your left. If no one has any other suit the play ends at this point, and there is no payment for the cards players have left in their hands.
Michigan Rummy / Three in One
Rules Of Newmarket Card Game
In this game, after the deal but before the actual Michigan, each player selects five of their cards and plays a round of Poker with them. The stake layout is also somewhat different from the normal Michigan / Boodle layout. See the Three in One page for details.
