The rules of the thirty one card game

How to play the card game thirty one

Thirty-one is a card game played between two and seven people but is usually best played with at least four players. The object is to obtain a hand with a point value closer to 31 than the hands of one's opponents.

Using one standard 52 card deck, cards rank as follows: aces are high, counting 11, face cards count 10, and all other cards count face value. Each player gets three cards and the rest of the pack is set in the middle of the table to act as the stock for the game, and the top card of the stock is turned over to begin the discard.

After the hands in the first round are dealt out, each player receives a previously chosen number of tokens, or, most commonly, coins. Play proceeds as in Gin Rummy, with each player, starting with the player to the immediate left of the dealer and going clockwise around the table, taking the top card of either the stock or the discard and afterward discarding a card. Play continues clockwise around the table until any player knocks or obtains a blitz.

When it is one player's turn, and that player believes his or her hand is high enough to beat those of his or her opponents individually, he or she knocks on the table instead of drawing and discarding. All other players, going clockwise from the player who knocked, have one more turn to draw from the stock and discard, or they have the option of keeping all three cards in their hands (i.e. standing, staying). A round ends when the player to the right of the player who knocked has had his or her final turn. If no one knocks by the time a player exhausts the stock, the round ends in a draw.

At the end of the round, each player shows his or her hand and totals it up. The player whose hand scored the lowest has lost the round, and must place one of his tokens or coins in the center of the table.

If, at any time in the round, a player attains a hand made up of an Ace, King and Ten of the same suit (a blitz), he must immediately show it, the round ends and all other players must place one token on the center of the table.
When a player has lost all of his or her tokens or coins, he or she continues to play until that player loses again; at that time, he or she must leave the game. The last player to stay in the game wins all of the tokens on the table.

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