Pope Joan

Players and equipment

Three to eight players and a standard 52-card pack with the eight of diamonds taken out, so a stop falls wherever that card would have been. You also want a staking board, or something that does its job — the Victorians ruled a round wooden board into eight compartments, labelled Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Pope, Matrimony, Intrigue and Game, but a sheet of paper ruled into eight squares works just as well. Pope is the nine of diamonds, whatever suit is trumps, named for a legendary medieval Pope who was supposedly a woman. Matrimony is the trump King and Queen, and Intrigue the trump Queen and Jack. Keep a pile of counters, chips or coins to one side — start with twenty or so each.

The deal

Deal passes to the left after every hand. Before dealing, the dealer dresses the board: six counters to Pope, two each to Matrimony and Intrigue, one each to Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Game. Deal the whole pack round one card at a time, to one more hand than there are players — the spare hand is the dead hand, and it stays face down and unlooked-at for the whole deal. Hands do not have to come out even. Turn the last card of the dead hand face up: that suit is trumps for the deal, and if it is Pope, or the trump Ace, King, Queen or Jack, the dealer takes whatever is sitting in the matching pot before a card is played.

Play

The player to the dealer's left starts, playing the lowest card they hold in any suit they choose, face up to the table, and naming it. Whoever holds the next card up in that suit plays it, and so on — two, three, four — until nobody can follow, because the next card is in the dead hand, has already been played earlier in the deal, or because a King has just gone down. That is a stop, and whoever played it starts a fresh run, playing the lowest card they hold in any suit they choose.

Playing the trump Ace, King, Queen, Jack or Pope wins whatever is sitting in that pot, there and then. Play the trump Jack and then the Queen, one after the other from the same hand, and you take Intrigue as well; play the trump Queen and then the King and you take Matrimony; manage Jack, Queen and King in a row and you take both. Some tables split a pot between two players when the two cards of a pair fall in different hands rather than paying neither.

Scoring

There is no running points total — Pope Joan pays in counters, on the spot, as the cards fall.

A trump Ace, King, Queen or Jack played

Whatever is staked

Takes that pot

Pope (the nine of diamonds) played

Six to start

Takes the Pope pot

Trump Jack then Queen, same hand

Two to start

Takes Intrigue

Trump Queen then King, same hand

Two to start

Takes Matrimony

First to empty their hand

One to start

Takes Game, plus a counter per card left in every other hand

Holding Pope, unplayed, at the end

—

Excused the per-card payment

On SquareScores that is the match table: a deal is one row, and the first player to play their last card is the one tap that banks it. The board's pots, and who swept which, are the table's own business — the sheet is not trying to keep a running account of counters, only of who went out first each time.

A worked deal

Four players — Alice, Ben, Cara and Dev — and Alice is dealing. She dresses the board (six to Pope, two each to Matrimony and Intrigue, one each to Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Game), deals to five hands, and turns up the queen of spades: spades are trumps this deal, and Alice sweeps the Queen pot at once, since the turn-up card is itself the trump queen.

Early in the play, Ben plays the jack of spades and sweeps the Jack pot. With the queen already out of play in the dead hand, Intrigue — which needs the trump jack and queen played one after the other from the same hand — can never be won this deal. Cara later plays the king of spades, which is always a stop, and takes the King pot. Dev is first to empty his hand, and takes Game plus a counter for every card left in the other three hands — except Cara, who is holding Pope and is excused.

Alice

1

Queen pot, on the turn-up

Ben

1

Jack pot

Cara

1

King pot

Dev

Game

Takes Game, plus a counter per card left in Alice's and Ben's hands

Cara (holding Pope)

—

Excused the per-card payment

On the match table this deal is one row, with a tap on Dev's name. The counters Alice, Ben and Cara won are theirs to keep, and whatever is left on the board carries to the next deal — only who went out first is written down.

Ending

A deal ends the moment somebody plays their last card — tap their name on the match table and the next deal is dealt. Unclaimed pots, such as a Matrimony or Intrigue nobody completes, simply sit and grow across several deals until somebody does. There is no fixed length to a sitting of Pope Joan: the traditional stopping point is whenever the table is tired, or somebody is down to their last few counters. End match whenever the table is done; that door is any player's, not only the dealer's.

Clear your stops early

A stop you cannot complete is dead weight. If you hold a card nobody can follow — a King, or one whose next card up is in the dead hand or already played — play it the moment you can. It costs you nothing, and it is one fewer card standing between you and going out.

Count the pots, not just your hand

A full board — six on Pope, a growing Matrimony and Intrigue — deserves more attention than your own cards some deals. If you hold the trump Queen or Jack and the other half of the pair has not shown, slow down rather than racing to shed it. A pair played one after the other is worth far more than the two cards are separately.

Watch what has already stopped

Once a card has been played, the card just below it becomes a new stop for the rest of the deal, because nobody can follow it. Keep a rough note of what has gone down in each suit — a long run early on tells you where the gaps now are, and a card you were sitting on uselessly can turn into a stop of your own later in the same deal.

Hold Pope if you can afford to

The player left holding Pope unplayed at the end pays nothing to the winner, however many cards they still have. If you are stuck with a weak hand near the end of a deal, keeping hold of Pope — rather than playing it the moment diamonds come round — can save you more than the Pope pot would have paid, since you pay nothing for all the cards you are left holding.

Lead your longest suit

Starting a fresh run with the suit you hold most of gives you the best odds of being the one who runs it into the next stop, which hands you the lead again straight away. A short suit, by contrast, is spent after one or two cards and hands the table back to somebody else.

Turning Pope

Some tables give the dealer the Game pot too, plus a stake for every card dealt to each player, whenever Pope turns up as trump. The cards are swept in without a card being played, the board is dressed again, and the deal passes on.

Paying double on Pope

Instead of excusing the player holding Pope, some tables make them pay the winner double for every card left in their hand, on the grounds that holding the game's best card and still losing the deal deserves the bigger fine.

A new suit must differ from the stop

In the plain game, whoever plays a stop may lead any suit next, including the one that just stopped. Some tables insist the new lead change suit, which spreads the stops more evenly round the pack.

Splitting a shared pair

If the trump Jack and Queen, or Queen and King, fall in two different hands rather than one, some tables split the pot between the two players instead of leaving it unclaimed for next time.

Playing in partnerships

Dickens has two couples who "went partners" at Pope Joan in The Pickwick Papers. The deal and the play are unchanged — partners still hold and play their own cards — it only changes who shares in what they win.

How many players do you need for Pope Joan?

Three at the fewest, eight at the most. The deal always makes one more hand than there are players, kept face down as the dead hand, so the game needs several hands going round for the stops to work at all.

Why is the nine of diamonds called "Pope" in Pope Joan?

Nobody is certain. The name may be a corruption of the French nain jaune ("yellow dwarf"), the game Pope Joan is related to, misheard as something closer to "Nun Joan" and then reworked into the legend of a woman who supposedly sat as Pope in the ninth century. The nine of diamonds is also known outside this game as the Curse of Scotland.

How do you win at Pope Joan?

By being the first to play every card in your hand. The winner of each deal takes the Game pot and a counter from every other player for each card still in their hand, except anybody holding Pope, who pays nothing. The other pots — for the trump Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Pope, and the Matrimony and Intrigue pairs — are won separately, during play, by whoever plays the right card at the right moment.

What counts as a "stop" in Pope Joan?

A card nobody can follow. That happens when the next card up in the same suit is sitting in the dead hand, has already been played earlier in the deal, or when a King has just been played, since nothing in the pack runs higher. Whoever plays the stop starts the next run by playing the lowest card they hold in any suit they choose.

Is Pope Joan related to any other games?

Yes. It is the English equivalent of the French Nain Jaune ("Yellow Dwarf"), and it sits in the same Stops family as the older Hoc and Comet and the modern, simpler Newmarket and Michigan.

Do unclaimed pots carry over between deals?

Yes. A pot nobody completes — Matrimony or Intrigue most often, since both halves of the pair have to fall in the same hand — stays on the board and grows at the next dressing, which is how a Pope or Matrimony pot can build up to a sizeable stake over several deals.