Texas Showdown

Cards & Tokens

For this game, you need:

• 2-5 friends or foes to play with (total 3-6 players).
• 60 cards in eight different colors:
  • Black 0-10
  • Red 11-20
  • Blue 21-29
  • Brown 31-38
  • Green 41-47
  • Yellow 51-56
  • Purple 61-65
  • Grey 71-74

In Minimal Travel Table Top Collection #3, pick all the cards with index color orange. Texas Showdown uses the top left corner information for the game.

The Idea of the Game

Texas Showdown is a trick-taking game. This means that in each round, every player in turn plays one card from their hand into the center of the table and the player who played the strongest card takes the trick. However, the goal of the game is to get as few tricks as possible, since each trick is worth 1 penalty point. The player with the fewest penalty points after a number of hands wins.

Setup

In a 3-player game, leave out the black (colts) and grey (skulls) cards; sort them out of the deck and put them back into the box. If there are four, five or six players, play with all the cards.

Shuffle the cards and deal them out equally to all players. All players take their cards into their hands.

Gameplay

Texas Showdown is played over several hands. A hand consists of as many tricks as you have cards in your hand.

Trick

In clockwise order, each player plays one card from their hand and puts it in the center of the table, face-up. This is called a “trick.” The player who has the 0 card always opens the first trick of the hand by placing the 0 in the center of the table. Note: In a 3-player game, the player who has the 11 opens the first trick by playing that card (instead of the 0). Then, in clockwise order, the other players each play one card from their hands into the trick. The card you play must be the same color as a card that is already in the trick. If you cannot play a matching card, you play any card from your hand instead.

Who takes the trick?

Once everyone has played a card, determine who takes the trick. To do so, figure out which color has the most cards in the trick. The player who played the highest-ranked card of that COLOR wins the trick.

If two or more colors are tied for most cards in the trick, the player who played the highest-ranked card of any of the tied colors takes the trick.

When you take a trick, put all the cards in that trick in front of you in a single face- down pile. Put any other tricks you may take later in separate piles, so everyone can easily see how many tricks each player has taken.

On to the next trick, then!

Who opens the next trick?

As a general rule, the player who takes a trick always opens the next one. That player may freely choose which card to play from his/her hand.

There is one exception, however: If you take a trick with the highest-ranked card of a particular color, you may decide which player opens the next trick (you can pick yourself).

Scoring & Next round

• When you have played all of the cards from your hand, the hand ends. Each player scores 1 penalty point for each trick he/she has taken. Note down everyone’s scores for the hand and start the next one by reshuffling and dealing the cards.

• Keep playing hands until at least one player has reached or exceeded a certain number of penalty points at the end of a hand:

  • 3-4 players: 15 points
  • 5 players: 12 points
  • 6 players: 10 points
• The player with the fewest points wins! If there is a tie, all tied players have won.