Grabuge

 

1. Number of Players and Deck of Cards

Grabuge is played between two players with two decks of 52 cards. It can also be played with four decks, and some people played it with six or even eight decks. The rules presented here are for two decks, but increasing the number of decks changes nothing fundamentally except the length of the game.

2. Preparing the Deck of Cards, the Stock

One player gathers the two decks, shuffles them, and makes them into two packets roughly equal, face down. He keeps one for himself and gives the other to his opponent.

Each of the two players takes his packet in hand, and places, one by one, the cards face down alternately to his right and to his left – he must absolutely start with the right. Each player, now having two packets in front of him, gives the other the one placed on his right. In the end, each player, having combined the packet received from his opponent with the one that remained on his left, has in front of him a packet of 52 cards. This method has the double advantage of dividing the cards equally between the two players without having to count them, while also shuffling them well.

After shuffling it, each player gives his packet of 52 cards to his opponent to cut, and places it, reassembled, at his left. It is then called the stock. Each of the two players has his own stock.

3. Forming the Grabuge

Each player draws 8 cards from the top of his stock, one by one, placing them in a packet to his right, face down. This packet is called the grabuge. Then the players turn over the top card of their grabuge, placing it back face up.

4. Object of the Game, the Packets

The object of the game is to win as many packets as possible. There are two types of packets, plus another, virtual one:

- A packet consists of 13 cards ranked in ascending order from the ace to the king. The ace is at the base of the packet and the king at the top. Suit (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs) is not taken into account (for example, a four of spades can be placed on a three of clubs). Such a packet is built up in the middle of the table, in turn by the two players, whenever they hold in their hand one or more cards directly higher than the top card of the packets already started. However, a packet can never be started other than with an ace. Since two decks of 52 cards are used, the potential number of packets is therefore eight. To win a packet from the middle of the table (the middle of the table will be called the tableau), it must be completed by placing a king on it. However many cards a player has placed in a packet, only the crowning of the packet by a king determines its owner. When a player wins a packet in this way, he removes it from the tableau and places it at his left.

- The term packet is also used for a group of five cards not played (to play a card means placing it in the tableau), when neither of the two players is any longer able to place one in the tableau, which brings the end of the game. Each of the two players then counts the number of cards he was unable to place in the tableau, and the difference between the two players' counts is taken. This difference is divided by five, and the whole-number part of the result gives the number of packets won by the player who had the fewer cards remaining. For example, Pierre has 13 cards left, and Paul has 4: the difference is 9 cards in favor of Paul, that is, 5 + 4 cards; Paul wins a packet, the four remaining cards do not count.

At the end of the game, the total number of packets won is worked out for each player. Whoever has the greater number wins the game. In our example, if Pierre won three packets from the tableau, and Paul only one, the final tally gives Pierre three packets and Paul two (one from the tableau + one from the unplayed cards). Pierre wins the game by a margin of one packet.

There is a third way to win a flat bonus of two packets, which is tied to being the first, under certain conditions, to exhaust the grabuge. These two virtual packets are added to the tally of the player concerned. Only one of the two players can benefit from this, but often neither of them does (see here).

5. Precedence

The player with precedence in cards – the one who will play first –, is the one whose grabuge shows the higher of the two face-up cards : the ace is the lowest, the king the highest.

However, if a player has an ace on his grabuge, he must place it face up in the tableau to make it the base of a packet. Then he turns over the next card of his grabuge which, if it is not another ace – it would be placed next to the first, to be the base of a second packet, and the next card would then be turned over –, will determine precedence by its rank.

6. Setup of the Game at the Start

Each player has his grabuge on his right and his stock on his left. If applicable, one or more aces are placed in the middle of the table (the tableau), forming that many bases for packets.

7. Course of Play

The player with precedence must, if the card turned up from the grabuge is a two, while an ace is in the tableau, place that two on the ace, and immediately turn over the next card of the grabuge. If this one can be added to the tableau – an ace will start a new packet, a two will go on an ace, a three on a two –, the player must do so, and so on as long as the cards of the grabuge can be added to the tableau, either onto a packet already started, or, if it is an ace, to serve as the base of a new packet.

When he cannot, or can no longer, play from the grabuge, the player draws the top four cards of his stock, face down. He turns over the first one, and:

- if it can find a place in the tableau, he must play it there. It may happen that, in this case, the turned-up card of the grabuge can then be placed on top of the last card played, and the player must then place it there, then turn over the new top card of the grabuge. The grabuge takes priority over the cards of the stock. As long as it is possible to play cards from the grabuge in this way, they must be played.

- if it cannot find a place in the tableau, he must place it face up in front of him. The cards thus placed in front of him, over the course of the game, will make up his reserve.

Then he turns over the second of the four cards, which he places in the tableau if possible. He proceeds as before for the grabuge, which is always given priority. In the case where he cannot, or can no longer use the grabuge, he must use his reserve if possible. A card played from the reserve may make it possible to use the grabuge. In other words, on his turn, a player must always give priority to his grabuge.

Being no longer able to play from his grabuge or his reserve, the player proceeds in the same way with the third card taken from the stock, and finishes with the fourth.

8. Forming the Reserve

When a player cannot play one of the four cards taken from the stock, he puts it in his reserve face up. In this way he can form up to four columns, on each of which the cards are placed one after another, the new one not completely covering the previous one, so that at any moment he can still know the nature of the cards in the columns.

A card placed in the reserve can no longer change position. It will only leave it to be placed in the tableau. Only the last card of a column may be played, so it is often disadvantageous to cover a card with another, higher one.

After playing the last of the four cards drawn from the stock, and, where applicable, everything he was able to play from his reserve and his grabuge, the player with precedence passes the turn to his opponent, who proceeds in the same way. And so on until the stocks are exhausted.

9. Using the Grabuge as the Stock

When the cards of his stock are exhausted, and he still has cards left in his grabuge, after having played everything he could from the reserve and the grabuge, the player must use the cards of the grabuge as he would those of the stock, including the last turned-up card not placed in the tableau. At this point, the grabuge loses its role as grabuge, and on his turn the player draws four cards from it, which he plays as he would those of the stock. When the former grabuge is made up of fewer than four cards, the player takes them all.

When the stock is finished, the grabuges of the two players do not necessarily have the same number of cards, and even if a player has no more cards left than those in his reserve, he must play these, on his turn, if his opponent has played a card in the tableau that gives him the opportunity to do so.

10. The Two Packets Linked to the Grabuge

Before the grabuge is used as the stock, the first player to exhaust the cards of his grabuge announces it to his opponent and counts two packets to his credit. If afterward the other player also exhausts his grabuge in turn, he does not count two packets. It is not uncommon for neither of the two players to be able to count this flat bonus of two packets.

11. Counting the Packets, Winner of the Game

When neither of the two players is any longer able to play anything, the game is over. Each player's packets won are counted, in accordance with their definitions. (see here)

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Reference

Great Academy of Combined Games, Revenaz and Tabernat, n.p., n.d. (c. 1920)

Information about the Page

Published online on April 19, 2010
Revised on November 12, 2021

Author : Philippe LALANNE

Le Salon des jeux - Académie des jeux oubliés

 

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