Harvest Sums

How to play

2 to 4 players, with 40 cards: the classic deck without its 8s, 9s and 10s, in diamonds, clubs, hearts and spades. The ace counts 1, the 2 to the 7 their number, the jack 8, the queen 9 and the king 10. Each deal: four cards face up on the table, three in each hand, the rest in the basket.

A turn

• Play one card from your hand. If a table card has the same value, you must take it.
• Otherwise you may take table cards adding up to its value: a queen (9) takes a 4 and a 5, or a 2, a 3 and a 4. Your card goes with the cards you take; if it takes nothing, it stays on the table.
• Take every card left on the table and it is a sweep, worth a point (but not with the deal's very last card).
• When the hands are empty, everyone gets three more cards from the basket. When the basket is empty too, the cards left on the table go to the last player who took.

The points of a deal

1 point each for the most cards taken, the most diamonds, the 7 of diamonds and the most 7s (a tie scores nobody), and 1 point for each sweep. The game ends after the deal in which a player reaches the target: the most points win.