The Play
Beginning with the player to the dealer's left, each player plays one card at a time, performing one (or more) of the following actions:
- Trailing: Any card may be discarded face up to the table.
- Pairing: Any card may be used to take one or more cards of the same number, or a build with the same value, that is face up on the table.
- Combining: A number card may be used to take two or more cards whose pips total the number on the card being used to take them. For example, a player may take a 3 and a 6 with a 9, or may take a 2, 4, and 4 with a 10.
- Building: Cards may be built upon in one of two ways (see Building).
Players may perform two of the above actions only when pairing and combining simultaneously; e.g. a player may take a 3, a 4 and a 7 with his own seven.
Players with builds on the table are limited in the actions they are permitted to make. This is described in more detail below.
Face-cards do not have a denomination in Cassino and are not available for building. The face-cards may only be paired one at a time; if there are two queens on the table, only one queen can be paired up. This removes the possibility of a so-called "orphan" face card remaining and removing the possibility of further sweeps.
Cards are usually left on the table after each player's final hand is exhausted. These cards are given to the last player to take in cards through pairing or combining. It is customary for the dealer, if dealt a face-card in the final hand, to hold this until the final play, as he is certain to pair with it.
Read more about this topic: Cassino (card Game)
Famous quotes containing the word play:
“There is a disease to which plays as well as men become liable with advancing years. In men it is called doting, in plays dating. The more topical the play the more it dates.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“This fellow is wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well craves a kind of wit.
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
Not, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practice
As full of labor as a wise man’s art.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)