41 Exchange

Players and equipment

Two to ten players and a standard 52-card pack — every card, including the twos through sixes that the three-card Schwimmen game strips out. No teams, no trumps, and nothing banked on the table: a round ends with a winner and nothing is bought in or owed. Clear enough room for everyone's four-card hand plus a pool of four face-up cards in the middle, with the rest of the pack beside it as the stock.

The deal

The dealer gives four cards face down to each player, then turns four more face up in the centre of the table — the pool everyone will trade with. The rest of the pack sits face down beside the pool as the stock. Look at your own four cards and keep them to yourself; the pool is the only thing on view.

Play

The player to the dealer's left goes first, and the turn then passes left round the table. At the start of your turn you choose one of four things to do:

Swap one card from your hand for one of the four pool cards, face up for face down.

Swap your whole hand for the whole pool — all four cards each way.

Clear the pool. Discard all four pool cards and deal four fresh ones from the stock, then swap one card from your hand for one of those new ones in the same turn — you can't clear the pool and walk away without trading.

End the round. Only at the very start of your turn, before you've swapped anything. The round stops on the spot and every hand is turned face up and compared.

Nobody else gets a turn once the round has been ended — that's the whole point of calling it early, and it means a player who has just built a strong hand should end it rather than give the table another look at the pool. If the stock runs dry before anybody ends the round, the discarded cards become the new stock — shuffled or not, whichever the table prefers — and play goes on.

Scoring

Ace

11

the highest card in the pack

King, Queen, Jack, Ten

10

the court cards and the ten

Two to Nine

face value

every other card

A hand's value is the total of its cards in whichever ONE suit scores highest — mixed suits don't add together. Four cards of the same suit can be worth as much as 41 (an ace and three ten-value cards); a hand with no two cards sharing a suit is worth only its single best card, as little as 2. SquareScores keeps no running total for this game and deals no cards itself — it only asks who held the best hand when a round ended, and files that as the round's result on the match table. Tap the name of the winning hand once the round is over; the host can mark any player's cell instead if you'd rather someone else checked it. End match is there too, for a round the table breaks off before anybody declares — any member can use it, and that round simply goes unscored rather than crowning a guess.

A worked round

Four players — Alice, Ben, Cara and Dev — a few turns in. Alice has been quietly building spades and decides she is strong enough to end the round before anyone swaps again.

Alice

41

ace, king, ten, queen of spades — all one suit

Ben

17

nine and eight of hearts, king of clubs, two of diamonds — best suit hearts

Cara

17

jack and seven of diamonds, ten of clubs, four of spades — best suit diamonds

Dev

11

ace of clubs on its own, the rest in three other suits

Alice's 41 is the maximum possible and nobody can touch it, so she wins outright. Ben and Cara tie for second on 17 each, which decides nothing at this table since only the winner is recorded — but it's worth noticing how close a middling hand can run: Dev's lone ace was worth more than half of either of theirs.

Ending

A round ends the instant somebody calls it at the start of their turn, or when a hand reaches the top value of 41 and its holder chooses to end rather than risk the table catching up. Compare every hand's best-suit total and the highest wins. If two or more hands tie for the best total, they all win. The sheet records one winner, so for a shared win use End match and the round is banked as a draw. Otherwise, tap the winner on the sheet, and the next round opens on its own; there's no button to press for it.

Watch what leaves the pool

Every swap tells you something. A player who takes a card from the pool wants it for a suit they're building, and a player who clears the whole pool rather than trading one card usually means their hand is weak across the board. Count which suits have gone missing from the table and you'll have a good guess at who is close to a big number.

Don't swap your way into nothing

Trading one card at a time for a stronger one in the same suit is the safe way to build a hand, but it hands the table a long look at what you're doing. Swapping your whole hand for the whole pool is faster and harder to read, but it throws away any progress you'd already made — only do it when your current hand is genuinely poor.

Clearing the pool is a confession

Discarding all four table cards and dealing fresh ones tells everybody that none of the four on offer suited you, and you still have to swap into the new spread before your turn ends. Save it for when the pool is actively working against your suit, not merely unhelpful.

End before the table catches up

There's no reward for sitting on a strong hand. The moment you hold something you're confident nobody else can beat, end the round — every extra turn you allow is another chance for somebody else to swap into something better, and unlike the three-card game, nobody gets a free extra turn once you've called it.

Two-handed play rewards whoever goes first

With only two players the one who goes first has a real edge, since they see the original pool before anybody else has touched it and can act on it immediately. If your table plays a lot of two-handed rounds, consider rotating who deals rather than always starting with the same player.

Playing without the pool-clearing option

A table can agree to drop the third choice — discarding the whole pool for four new cards — and allow only a single swap, a full swap, or ending the round. It makes the table's four cards a scarcer resource, since nobody can wave away a spread that doesn't suit them, and it slows a round down a little.

Keeping a tally across a sitting

The variant's own suggestion was to give the winner points equal to their hand's value and take off each loser the gap between their hand and the winner's — which a sheet of whole numbers upward can't carry, since the losers' half runs negative. SquareScores doesn't attempt that tally; it simply records who won each round, and a table that wants the fuller scoring can keep it on paper beside the app.

Playing for chips, as the three-card game does

The three-card Schwimmen this variant grew out of is played for chips, with the weakest hand losing one each round and the last player holding any chips taking the pot. A table can bring that into the four-card game as well. SquareScores keeps no pot for this game — a table that wants stakes plays with real chips and uses the app only to record each round's winner.

Declaring 41 on the spot

A table can agree to treat the maximum hand as an automatic, instant win the moment anybody holds it, with no need to wait for their own turn to call it. It's a small change worth agreeing on before you deal, since otherwise a player dealt a 41 has to wait, in silence, for their own turn to come round.

How many cards do you get in 41 Exchange?

Four, dealt face down, with four more face up on the table for everyone to trade with. The stock sits face down beside the pool for whenever a player clears it.

What's the highest possible hand?

41 — an ace and three ten-value cards (any mix of kings, queens, jacks and tens) all in the same suit. It's the hand the variant is named for.

Can you swap more than one card at a time?

Only all four at once: you can trade one card for one pool card, or your whole hand for the whole pool — nothing in between.

What happens when the stock runs out?

The discarded cards are turned over and become the new stock, shuffled or not as the table prefers. Play carries on exactly as before.

What happens if two hands tie?

They all win — the variant's own description counts every hand that ties with the best as a winning hand. The sheet can only file one winner, so for a shared win use End match and the round is banked as a draw.

How do you win 41 Exchange?

By holding the best single-suit total when the round ends. Whoever calls the end of the round at the start of their turn stops play immediately, every hand turns face up, and the highest total wins — mixed-suit cards never add together, so only your best suit counts.

Can two people play 41 Exchange?

Yes, and the rules work exactly the same, though the player who goes first sees the original pool before anyone else and has a real advantage from it — worth bearing in mind if you always deal to the same person.