Quintus (2012)

Quintus is a light-hearted yet tactical partnership trick-taking card game for five players, which is comparable in game mechanics to the Dutch game of Klaverjas (and its better known siblings Belote and Jass). The game is played with a standard French deck, without twos, threes, fours and jokers -- 40 cards in total. The cards rank as usual, from 5 (low) to ace (high) in all suits. The title stems from Latin and means `fifth'. This refers to the fifth player who plays alone, against the rest who play in two teams of two. The objective for all players is to take card points in tricks; the two teams combine their points while the quintus receives a card point bonus and the privilege to choose the trump suit. Jacks, queens and kings earn points while pip cards cost points. Additional points ("premiums") may be scored by winning combinations of cards in tricks. As an alternative to a standard hand, the quintus may elect to play a nil hand in which he seeks to avoid taking any court card or ace. Team mates may signal information about their cards through specific hand gestures. As a variant to the base game, the quintus may be chosen through a bidding round in which the bid for the highest amount of combined card, nil and premium points wins.