500 or Five Hundred is a trick-taking game that is an extension of Euchre with some ideas from Bridge. For two to six players it is most commonly played by four players in partnerships but is sometimes recommended as a good three player game. It arose in America before 1900 and was promoted by the United States Playing Card Company, who copyrighted and marketed the rules in 1904. 500 is a social card game and was highly popular in the United States until around 1920 when first Auction bridge and then Contract Bridge drove it from favour. It continued to enjoy popularity in Australia, New Zealand and Quebec.
The standard deck contains 45 playing cards: a Joker is included, and the 2s, 3s, and 4s are removed. Ten cards are dealt to each of the four players and five are dealt face down on the table to form the blind.
Players play in pairs, usually opposite each other. The deal is performed by dealing three cards to each player, then placing three cards in the blind, four cards each and two to the blind, and then three.
As in Euchre, in non-trump suits, the order of cards from highest to lowest is Ace, King, Queen, (Jack), 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. In the trump suit, the highest card is the Joker, sometimes known as best bower in reference to the trump Jacks, followed by the Jack of the trump suit called right bower, and then the Jack of the suit of the same color as the trump suit called left bower, which is considered part of the trump suit, followed by the Ace, King, Queen, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4.
Bower is an Anglicization of the German Bauer, a word meaning farmer, peasant, or pawn. This name is often used to refer to the Jack of German games.
Any player dealt neither an Ace nor a face card (Joker, King, Queen, or Jack), may ask their partner to declare the hand as a dead. If the partner agrees, the hand is declared dead and a reshuffle and re-deal is made. If the partner disagrees (because, for example, he thinks he can still win the bid), play continues as normal. This is known as the 'No Ace, No Face' rule.
After the deal, players call in turn, electing either to bid or to pass. A bid indicates the combined number of tricks the bidder believes he and his partner will take and the suit that will be trumps for that hand, or that there will be no trump suit. For instance, a bid of "seven spades" indicates that the player intends to win seven or more tricks with spades being the trump suit, whereas a bid of "seven no-trump" indicates that the player intends to win seven or more tricks with no trump suit (in which case the only trump card is the joker).
A bid of six is called an inkle. A player who bids "six spades" is indicating to their partner that they have some spades but not enough to bid seven. Only the first two players may inkle.
A player may elect not to bid, or to "pass". Bidding proceeds clockwise around the table, with each player passing or making a higher-scoring bid.
The order of seniority of suits in bidding (highest to lowest, as reflected in the scores below) is hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades. Therefore, for example, a player who bids "seven clubs" may be outbid by a subsequent bidding player on seven diamonds or seven hearts, but not seven spades. A "no trumps" bid beats any suited bid of the same number. Inkles are typically also similarly ranked: If the first player bids "six hearts", the next player cannot inkle spades, clubs, or diamonds. Their only options are to inkle no trump, bid seven or more (of any suit, or no trump), or pass.
There is only one round of bidding, with each player getting one chance, in turn, to either bid or pass. The player making the successful bid then collects the blind. This player sorts through his hand and discards the least-useful five cards (possibly including cards picked up from the blind), and places them face down; the discarded cards playing no further part in the hand.
If nobody makes a bid, the hand is declared dead and a reshuffle and re-deal is made.
No trump means that the joker is the only trump card (there are no bowers and no trump suit when playing no trump).
Six No is sometimes distinguished from Six No Trump, with the former meaning the player has high cards and the latter meaning they have the joker. Six No Trump is the highest inkle. However, such a distinction is often forbidden and considered to be illegal table talk, with the only legal No Trump inkle being the full "Six No Trump", and with the player's partner left to determine whether the inkle means their partner has high cards, the joker, both, or that they are simply blocking the opponents from inkling.
The game focuses on tricks. The lead starts with the player who won the bidding. Players must follow suit if they can (This includes the left bower or any other card that is considered a trump, if trumps are led). If a player no longer has any cards of the suit that is led, he may play any card in his hand. After all four players have played a card, the highest trump takes the trick. If no trumps are played, the highest card of the lead suit wins the trick. The winner of the trick leads on the next trick. Once all ten tricks have been played, the hand is scored. The player to the left of the previous dealer deals for the next hand, so that the deal moves clockwise around the table.
The goal is for the team who wins the bid to take at least as many tricks as they bid. If the high bid is "eight hearts," then the team wins the hand if they take 8, 9, or all 10 tricks and are awarded points according to the table below. There are no bonuses for overtricks (tricks over the number bid). If they do not make their bid, the same number of points is subtracted from their score. Whether or not the bid winning team achieves its bid, the opposing team receives 10 points for each trick they take. A team wins the game by scoring at least 500 points. A team whose score dips to -500 points or below loses the game. This is also known as going "out the back door" or "out backwards."
+-----------+--------+-------+----------+--------+----------+
| Tricks | Spades | Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | No Trump |
+-----------+--------+-------+----------+--------+----------+
| 6 tricks | 40 | 60 | 80 | 100 | 120 |
| 7 tricks | 140 | 160 | 180 | 200 | 220 |
| 8 tricks | 240 | 260 | 280 | 300 | 320 |
| 9 tricks | 340 | 360 | 380 | 400 | 420 |
| 10 tricks | 440 | 460 | 480 | 500 | 520 |
+-----------+--------+-------+----------+--------+----------+
- 6-trick bids are considered inkles, raising the minimum bid to 7-Spades.
- A team wins the game by scoring at least 500 points through winning bids, which means that any team surpassing 500 points solely with tricks has not yet won the game.
Bids are typically made with the consideration that you will be receiving cards from the blind and playing with a partner who hopefully will also be able to win a certain amount of tricks. While the number of tricks you feel your partner will be able to win will vary in each situation, you should bid based on that assumption and not only on the cards in your hand.
On the other hand, it is also important to remember that your partner will be using the same strategy in their bidding; and therefore, if your partner bids six hearts, for example, you may not necessarily want to bid eight hearts simply because you have two cards of the proposed trump suit in your hand.
When confronted with a hand that is more-or-less even in two different suits, it is customary to bid on the suit with a higher point value.
The deck is composed of four suits with 11 cards each, and one Joker. In a suited contract (e.g., seven hearts, eight spades, etc.), the trump suit will have 13 cards, the suit of the same color will have only ten, and the two suits of opposite color will remain at 11 cards each.
A simple strategy to bidding is to attempt to predict how the unaccounted-for trump cards (the ones you don’t actually hold in your hand) would be distributed among the remaining players, excluding the blind, with all things being equal. In other words, if you hold seven cards of one suit it can be helpful to assume that the remaining six trump cards are distributed evenly among the remaining three players (two each and none in the blind). Doing so can provide a basic idea of how many times your opponents will be able to follow suit in each of the four suits.
If you are successful at bidding a suited contract and are awarded the blind, a basic strategy of discarding is to eliminate as many non-trump suits from your hand as possible, thus giving the most opportunity to use trump cards. However, discarding as many suits as possible is only a basic strategy, and should be met with some qualifications.
First, in most contract bids it is beneficial to keep an ace of any non-trump suit, as with all things being equal each player should have at least two cards of any given suit, thus the ace of any non-trump suit should theoretically be a winning card.
Second, it can also be effective in some circumstances to intentionally keep the king of a non-trump suit and a low card of the same suit (for example the six and king of hearts when spades are trump) when you are unable to discard that suit entirely. The resulting strategy is to then play the low card first, with the assumption that you will lose the trick to the player holding the ace of that suit, and then when you have regained control of the table the king is played under the assumption that it will be a winning card.
The way in which cards should be led will always be situational.
Sometimes called flushing or bleeding trump, leading the trump suit immediately can often be (but isn’t always) an effective strategy. This is typically done in the following situations.
First, when a player has an above-average number of high trump cards they may wish to flush out the missing high trump cards. For example, if a player who has bid seven hearts is left holding the Joker, jack of diamonds, ace of hearts, king of hearts, queen of hearts and four of hearts, then they have five of the six highest cards (and six total). A suitable strategy would be to start the game playing highest trump (the Joker) in an attempt to force the play of the jack of hearts.
An alternate, but similar, strategy in this situation would be to play the queen of hearts. This alternate strategy would force the player holding the jack of hearts to decide between either playing the jack, or throwing away a lower trump card to intentionally lose to the queen.
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