Sergeant Major

Players and equipment

Sergeant Major is a trick-taking game for exactly three players. You need a standard 52-card pack and nothing else. Play passes clockwise, and there are no partnerships — every seat plays for itself.

The deal

The first dealer is picked any way the table likes — a card cut, a coin, whoever fetched the drinks. After that, the deal rotates clockwise: the next dealer is whoever led to the first trick of the hand before.

The first hand

Shuffle, cut, and deal the cards singly, sixteen to each player. The last four cards go face down in the middle as the kitty. The dealer names a suit as trumps — clubs, spades, hearts or diamonds; there is no playing without a trump suit — then discards any four cards face down and picks up the four from the kitty.

Later hands: trading cards

From the second hand on, the cards are dealt sixteen each as before, and then comes a trade. If one player was up last hand (more on what that means under Scoring), they give each down player one unwanted card, face down, for every trick that player was short, all at once; each down player adds the cards to their hand and returns, also face down, their highest card of the same suit for each one received — the very same card back, if they hold no other of that suit. If two players were up, the one with the bigger quota for the coming hand trades first, each giving one card per overtrick of their own to the one player who was down; the other follows once that trade is done.

Only after the trading is finished does the dealer name trumps, discard four cards, and take the four from the kitty. If the dealer was down, handed back their highest card of a suit in the trade, and then finds a higher card of that suit in the kitty, they must show it privately to whoever they traded with in that suit — the one piece of information the rules insist you share.

Play

The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick, with any card. After that, you must follow suit if you can; with none of the suit led, play anything. The highest trump played wins the trick, or, with no trump in it, the highest card of the suit led. Whoever wins a trick leads the next one.

Scoring

Each seat carries its own quota of tricks for the hand: the dealer needs 8, the player to the dealer's left needs 5, and the player to the dealer's right needs 3. Add those up and you get sixteen — exactly the tricks in play once the kitty is set aside, so somebody's overtricks always match somebody else's undertricks exactly.

Win more tricks than your quota and you are up, by however many tricks over; win fewer and you are down, by however many short. The table settles a stake per trick either way between whoever is up and whoever is down — SquareScores deals no cards and holds no money, so the stakes stay entirely between you; settle them at the table the way you always have.

A game is won the moment somebody takes twelve or more tricks in a single hand, however many hands that took. On SquareScores the whole game, start to finish, is one row on the match table: a tap on the winner's name when the twelfth trick falls records it.

A hand worked out

Dealer

up 2

won 10 tricks, needed 8

Left-hand opponent

down 1

won 4 tricks, needed 5

Right-hand opponent

down 1

won 2 tricks, needed 3

The dealer is up two, and the two opponents are down one each — two overtricks against two undertricks, so the stakes balance exactly. The dealer collects a stake from each of the other two, and next hand's trade starts from the dealer's overtricks.

Ending

The game ends the moment any player wins twelve or more tricks in a single hand — that player has won outright, whatever the running count of hands says. Tap their name on the match table and the game is recorded. Short of that, the hands just keep coming, each with its own trade and its own targets.

Play for your own number, not the biggest pile

A trick over your quota is worth exactly the same as a trick over anybody else's. The dealer chasing eight tricks and the player chasing three are playing different games inside the same hand — do not measure yourself against the pile in front of someone else's elbow.

Trading tells the table what you are holding

Handing over your worst card in a suit, and getting back the best card your opponent has in it, is a straight swap of strength — but it also tells a careful opponent what suit you are short in. If you were up last hand, think about whether the card you give away is one you can afford to be seen giving.

The kitty can save a bad hand

Whoever deals gets first look at four fresh cards after discarding four of their own — a real chance to turn a poor hand around, especially in a suit they can then call trumps. A dealer sitting on a weak hand before the kitty should hold back on naming trumps in a suit they are not actually strong in.

Every overtrick pays twice

A trick over your quota collects a stake now and, next hand, swaps one of your worst cards for an opponent's best in that suit. That is why a player who gets ahead tends to stay ahead — and why the two players behind should spend their good cards stopping the leader's overtricks, not just scraping their own quota.

Twelve tricks is closer than it looks

With only sixteen tricks in a hand, a dealer already needing eight is just four tricks from ending the game outright. Watch your own running count as the hand plays out, not just whether you have made your target.

Picking up before you discard

Some tables have the dealer take the four kitty cards first and discard afterwards, rather than discarding blind and picking up after. It changes how much the dealer can see before committing to a suit — worth agreeing before the first hand, not after a bad one.

Playing to the last trick

Rather than stopping the game at twelve tricks, some tables play every hand right out to all sixteen, and only count it a win when somebody takes the lot. It can run very long — these games are usually abandoned before anyone manages it.

The reduced deck

One well-known version drops the two of clubs, deals seventeen cards each, and resets the quotas to 8-6-3, scoring a point for each trick above or below target rather than a stake, with the game played to ten points. Another, remembered from a British Army table in 1930s India, drops the two of spades instead, deals seventeen each, and plays to quotas of 9-5-3 — in theory to all seventeen tricks, though in practice the table usually gives up and hands the game to whoever is dominant.

Nine-Five-Two

This Canadian cousin of the game swaps the fixed per-hand quotas for a running score kept on paper: a plus point for every trick over quota, a minus for every trick under, with quotas of 9, 5 and 2 for the dealer and the two opponents. The table plays on, hand after hand, until somebody's score crosses an agreed line, usually 10 or 20. It is a different scoring shape from the one this game's row uses, and worth its own entry if your table plays it that way.

Four-handed Sergeant Major

Add a fourth player and there is no kitty — every card is dealt out, with quotas of 5, 4, 2 and 2 around the table. Trading gets more interesting with two players up and two down at once: when two players pluck the same opponent in a suit, that player hands back their highest cards by the rank of the cards each plucker sent, the best to whoever sent the higher card, instead of trading in turn. It is different enough — more players, different quotas, a different trade — to belong on its own row rather than as a variant of this one.

How many cards do you deal in Sergeant Major?

Sixteen to each of the three players, with the last four cards set aside as the kitty. Only the dealer ever touches the kitty, after discarding four cards of their own.

What happens if everybody makes their quota exactly?

Nobody is up and nobody is down, so no stakes change hands and there is no trade before the next hand: the deal passes to the left and the new dealer names trumps straight away. Nobody can fall short without somebody else going over, since the three quotas use up all sixteen tricks.

Can the game end on the very first hand?

Yes. If the dealer, or either opponent, wins twelve or more tricks in that first hand, the game is over there and then — there is no minimum number of hands to play first.

Does the dealer have to pick a suit, or can they play with no trumps?

No — "no trump" is not an option here. The dealer must name one of the four suits as trumps every single hand, before discarding and taking the kitty.

Why do the targets add up to sixteen?

Because that is exactly how many tricks are in play once the kitty's four cards are set aside — eight for the dealer, five and three for the two opponents. It is also why one player's overtricks always match the others' undertricks exactly: there is nowhere else for the difference to go.

Can you play Sergeant Major with more or fewer than three players?

Not this version — it is built for exactly three, with a kitty that only works at that count. A four-handed way exists, without the kitty and at different quotas, which makes it a different game to score.