Maw

The old Irish card game that has changed little in the 400+ years of its existence. It is also called “Spoil Five”.

Number of Players

It works ideally with 4 or 5 players, but up to 10 may play.

Set Up

• A 52-card deck

Players pool 2-3 tokens that make up the pool.

The Deal

Deal cards to every player until one player receives a Jack of any suit, which determines the dealer for the round, passing the deal to the left for each subsequent round. The dealer adds another stake to the pool called the “dealer’s stake”. Shuffle the cards again with the neighbor cutting the deck. Deal a pack of 3 cards to each player followed by a pack of 2 cards. Place any remaining cards face down and turn over the top card for the trump suit.

Issues while Dealing

If you deal too many or too few cards, accidentally or intentionally expose a card that was supposed to be face down, you forfeit your turn as a dealer and dealing passes to the left. Optionally, if all players agree, you can add another dealer’s stake to the pool.

Robbing the Pack

If you are dealt the Ace of the trump suit and prior to the first trick, you may take turned up card that denotes the trump suit. If the turned up card is the Ace of the trump suit, the dealer may place a card face-down from their hand in front of them. When it is the dealer’s turn to discard a card, they take the card and may discard it immediately for effect or discard on a later turn.

Game Play

The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick. If you can’t follow the trump suit, discard any card. If you can follow suit, you may discard from that suit or the trump suit. If the trump suit is lead, you must follow suit with a trump suit. The winner of the trick is the one with the highest rank discarded.

Suit Ranking

The following are always the highest of the trumps (in order):

• 5 of the trump suit, also called the “five fingers”.
• Jack of the trump suit
• Ace of Hearts
• Ace of the trump suit if the trump suit is not Hearts

Furthermore, the ordering of ranking is different per suit:

• For the red suits, the court cards are the same as any other game in ranking. The 10 is high and Ace is low for the pips.
• For the black suits, the court cards are the same as any other game in ranking. The Ace is high and 10 is low for the pips.

In both cases, the Jack and Ace are only like this when they are not in the highest trumps category.

Winning the Game

The person with the highest number of tricks won at the end of 5 rounds, wins the game and the pool.

Jinking

If you win the first three rounds of the game, you may take the entire pool and win the game or lead the fourth round despite having lead before. This is called “jinking it”. If jinking it, receive an additional stake from every player in addition to the pool. Otherwise, you lose all claim to the pool, play ends, and the pool carries forward to the next deal.