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This is a trick taking game played with a standard suite of cards. There is a variant where the jokers are used, but I will be describing the standard game. The translation of the name is '400'.

It needs 4 players. Each player is dealt 13 cards. Hearts are trump.

At the beginning of a game, each player states the minimum amount of tricks they are going to win. If you claim that you will win 5 or more tricks, your score will be doubled (i.e 6. tricks means 12 points). If the total number of tricks between the players is not at least 11, cards are reshuffled and dealt out again.

The player with the 2 of clubs starts by placing it down. Each player then attempts to play a card of a matching suit, with the highest card winning the trick. If they don't have the matching suit they can play a trump card, which will automatically win the trick (unless someone plays a higher trump). Any card from another suit is considered 'dead' (i.e. no chance of winning the trick)

In the following tricks, players can play any cards except the trump suit unless the trump had already been played in previous rounds.

The game ends when one player reaches 100 points. If you lose a round, your bet gets deducted from your points total

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    This sounds like a clone of Spades.
    – Hao Ye
    Commented Apr 22, 2015 at 7:44
  • Want to add that as an answer explaining any differences, if any?
    – link64
    Commented Apr 22, 2015 at 7:45

3 Answers 3

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Like AndyT said in his answer, the game is 400 according to all the cited sources he mentioned.

The difference between 400 and spades is in the scoring, and that spades are trump instead of hearts.

Spades is a team game with 2 teams of 2 players. The bidding is combined based on how many tricks the team will take. If you take as many tricks as you bid, the team gets 10 points per trick that was bid. If you do not take as many tricks as you bid, you lose 10 points per trick that was bid. The minimum team bid is 4 tricks.

Double points only occur when the team can bid and pull 10 tricks, scoring them 200 points instead of 100.

I think that covers the major points, but there are other differences as well.

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  • Added a nod to @AndyT for naming the game.
    – Brian Robbins
    Commented Apr 22, 2015 at 21:20
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Well, according to the fount of all knowledge it's called 400, is a Lebanese game, and bears some resemblance to Spades but with a few differences.

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    This answer is very terse and is close to being "link-only", which are discouraged because they can become useless due to link rot. It would be improved by including text (quotes from the links, probably) showing how this is a correct answer.
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Commented Dec 28, 2021 at 12:54
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In Australia its called 41 and popular in prison.

See game description at BGG and at pagat.

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  • This is even more terse than @AndyT 's answer -- it could possibly be a good answer if you include information from the linked sources showing why you think this is correct, and to protect against link rot.
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Commented Dec 28, 2021 at 12:57

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