This page is a translated archive of the original Académie des jeux oubliés, created on July 1, 2026, from the French original at salondesjeux.fr.
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This page is a translated archive of the original Académie des jeux oubliés, created on July 1, 2026, from the French original at salondesjeux.fr.
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The
Sleeping Cat
The Sleeping Cat is a card game, from the family of pool games which require a relatively large number of players, only one of whom will win the stakes of all the others. As a result, losses are generally minor while a single player wins a relatively substantial sum. It is a convivial game of pure chance. The expression « you mustn't wake the sleeping cat » may be at the origin of the game, if it is not the game that is at the origin of the expression.
1. Number of players and deck of cards The
Sleeping Cat is played by five to twelve players, with a number of cards
equal to the number of players plus one. The cards must be
of a different rank from one another. For ease of memorization
it is preferable to take cards that follow one another in the ordinary
hierarchy of a 52-card deck – that is to say ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7,
8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king.
At
the start of the game, each player receives a quantity of chips,
called the stake, determined by how long one wants to make
the game last. The larger the stake, the longer the game will last. One might take,
for example, 3 chips per player.
A
player takes the cards, shuffles them, and spreads them, face down,
on the table. Each player draws one, and whoever draws the highest is the first
dealer. He gathers the cards, shuffles them, has them cut
by the player to his left, then deals one to each player counterclockwise,
starting with the player to his right
and finishing with himself.
The first to play is the player seated to the right of the dealer. He is responsible for designating the player who will be the caller. To do this, he names at random a card by its rank – king, queen, seven, etc. – saying for example : « The jack calls! ». All the players then secretly look at their card, and whoever holds the card named will be the caller for that hand. The caller places his card face up in front of him, then begins by calling one of the cards of the game, as he pleases, saying for example : « I call the seven! » or simply « The seven! ». If a player holds the card called, he reveals it on the table in front of him, and puts one of his chips in the middle of the table. The chips thus paid during the game make up the pool. The caller continues in the same way to call the cards in whatever order he wishes, and the players concerned always place a chip in the pool. The caller,
when designated by the first player, does not have to
put a chip into the pool. Note that chance may have it that
the caller is also the first player, the latter having called
his own card. When
a hand ends in one of the first three ways,
another one is begun, and whoever was the first player becomes
the dealer if he still has at least one chip, otherwise it will be the next player to the right
who still has at least one. Hands continue to be played until
all players but one have been stripped of all
their chips, which, as we have seen, determines the immediate
end of the hand and of the game. The last player to
hold one or more chips takes the pool, and thus wins the total of all the players' stakes.
Reference Pierre
M. Huvier des Fontenelles, Les Soirées amusantes ou entretien sur les
jeux à gages ou d'autres, Veuve Duchesne et fils, Paris, 1790, 2e éd. Page information Published
online on September 27, 2010 Le Salon des jeux - Académie des jeux oubliés
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