President (card game)
President is a shedding card game for three or more, in which the players race to get rid of all of the cards in their hands in order to become "president" in the following round. It is a Westernized version of Chinese climbing card games such as Zheng Shangyou, Tien Len in Vietnam and the Japanese Daifugō.
President can also be played as a drinking game, and commercial versions of the game with a non-standard deck exist, including The Great Dalmuti and Presidents Card Game.
Special titles
There may be many titles used by players during the game. Often, players move seats to sit in the order of their place, so as not to forget the order. There is generally at least a president, vice-president and scum. However, this game is usually played with up to 6 players, and if so, more titles may be needed.The rankings for four players are as follows:President – the winner of the previous round, regardless of number of players.Vice-president – second place, regardless of the number of players.Person – the other players.High-Scum – next-to-last place. Scum – last place in the previous round. If the scum is last place, they get to go first to start the round.
There are other titles for games with larger numbers of player with various names.
Rules regarding card passing can be changed to accommodate these two positions if desired. A large or odd number of players generally calls for having at least one "Person" role, but there can be as many as needed.
The President deals the cards, starting with themselves and proceeding in order of player hierarchy from low to high until all cards are dealt. If the Scum is the dealer, this ensures that the President begins with the fewest cards if the hands are uneven.
How to play
The rules provided are merely one of many ways known to play the game; there are many different varieties with slight twists to the rules.Objective
To play all of your cardsDealing
The person who is president shuffles and deals the cards. The cards are dealt in clockwise rotation. Some players may have more cards than others, if the deck cannot be divided equally.After cards are dealt, the scum must hand over the best card in their hand to the president, and the president passes back any card they do not want.
Variations with multiple top and two bottom positions often require the scum to hand additional cards to the president, up to the number of top positions in the game. In any event, the players who receive cards from the bottom positions always hand back an equal number of "junk" cards that they do not want. They are not obliged to pass back their lowest cards.
Playing
Play in President is organized into tricks, much like in spades or bridge. However, unlike those games, each trick can involve more than one card or group of cards played by each player, and players may choose to not play in a trick. Usually, suits are irrelevant, but variants exist that include trump suits.The player on the dealer's left begins by leading any number of cards of the same rank. The player on the left may then play an equal number of matching cards with a higher face value, or may pass. Note that the same number of cards as the lead must be played; e.g., if the leader starts with a pair then only pairs may be played on top of it, and if three-of-a-kind was led then only three-of-a-kinds can be played on top of it. The next player may do the same, and so on.
This continues until all players have had a turn, or opted to pass.
End of a round
When one player runs out of cards, they have won and are out of play for the rest of the round, but the other players might continue to play to determine the remaining titles. A few versions hold that once a player goes out, players count remaining card values to establish titles, or simply count the number of cards remaining in each player's hand, and other versions have one player left with cards at the end.When playing by traditional rules, once titles are decided, most players stand and move position to accommodate the winner's seated position. The President is the dealer, and the players must rearrange themselves around them so that they are seated in order of rank, clockwise. Some variants do not rearrange the seating of the players, so everyone plays in the same order each hand.
After the first round has determined player rank, subsequent hands are opened by the president.