Frequently Asked Questions
Questions from people new to bidding games
Questions from people familiar with bidding games
Questions
from people new to bidding games
What is Roolz?
Roolz
is the ultimate bidding game. It is the only game to use six suits,
two trumps, and a
100-card deck.
How do I win?
By scoring points and being the first to reach an agreed upon point total.
How do I score points?
By
playing the most powerful card in a trick which contains point cards.
Do I win
points for each trick I take?
No.
Points are awarded solely on the value of the point cards you win. Each
15 is worth 15
points; 14s and 10s are worth ten points each; 5s are worth five points;
each Rooler is worth
30 points.Three hundred points are possible in each round of Roolz.
What’s a
suit?
Roolz suits are all colors, blue, purple, red, orange, yellow, and green.
All the cards of each
color comprise the suit.
What is a trick?
A unit of play in which each player plays one card.
Who decides which card wins the trick?
The winning card is either the highest-numbered card in the lead suit (if
no trump cards are
played) or the highest trump card.
What
does ‘lead suit’ mean?
Lead suit is the color of the first card played each trick. All players
must play in suit if they
have any cards in that suit.
What does ‘trump’ mean?
A trump is a suit that beats other suits. Normally, higher cards
are more powerful than lower
cards (the blue 15 beats the blue 14 and so on). However, a trump
card beats a non-trump
card regardless of denomination.
When can I play trump?
When you are out of the lead suit and wish to do so.
Do I have to play trump if I am out of lead suit?
No. Unlike many bidding games, it is not required to play trump when
you are out of lead
suit. You may play whatever card you wish. To play a non-trump card in
such a situation is
to "slough."
Who decides which suits are trump?
The high bidder has the privilege of choosing and announcing trumps.
What’s the purpose of bidding?
Bidding is a way to determine who gets the cards in the widow (the four—or,
sometimes,
five—cards placed face-down on the table during the deal that belong initially
to no one) and
who gets to name trumps.
How is the bidding done?
The minimum accepted bid is 170 (or 120 in the five- or six-player game).
It increases in
increments of five points. Players may increase the bid or pass,
but once they pass they may
not reenter bidding for that round.
Why doesn’t everybody just bid
300?
By bidding, you are saying that you (and your partner) will win at least
that many points.
Should you fail to do so, you get that many points deducted from your score.
(That is
called being ‘set.’)
What should I bid?
As many points as you feel confident you can win. The best advice
we can give is that you
quickly get a feel for what is a reasonable bid. Roolz does not penalize
players for scoring
more points than they bid.
What is a good hand?
Mostly,
a good bidding hand is strong in at least two suits. Also, be aware
of what suits you
might be able to rid yourself of should you win the widow.
Remember, you may not throw
away point-value cards, so lone 5s, 10s, and 14s should be listed on the
balance sheet as
liabilities.
What’s a balance sheet?
See Infrequently Asked Questions.
Are all these words defined anywhere?
Yes. Every deck of Roolz comes with a complete list of definitions.
They’re also included
under The Complete Rules
of Roolz.
This sounds like a pretty good game for teaching strategy and logic. Is it?
Yes, it is. That’s very perceptive of you. We believe you’ll make a good Roolz player.
Why are you giving away Roolz for Windows 95 for Free?
We're giving it away as a promotion. We realize
that it's quite ambitious of us to claim that
Roolz is the Ultimate Bidding Game. Bridge,
Spades, Hearts...they were all good games.
But now there's something better. Don't take
our word for it. Download the game and see
for yourself. And when you find yourself addicted
to the added excitement of six suits and
two trumps, we're confident you'll want a 100-card
deck so you can play all the 2-6 player
versions with your friends.
Questions from people familiar with bidding/trump games
What makes Roolz different than bridge (or spades or Rook)?
Roolz is different because it has six suits instead of four and makes use
of two trumps instead
of one. With sixteen cards per suit and four additional special cards,
the 100-card deck is
also larger than decks for less-developed bidding games. Perhaps
most importantly, Roolz
can be played by groups of two, three, four, five, or six people.
Are Rooler cards just like Rook cards in Rook?
No. In most versions of Rook, the Rook card is both the most valuable
and the most
powerful card in the deck. Little skill is required to win Rook card
because it always wins.
In Roolz, however, the Rooler cards are the most valuable, yet least powerful
of the trumps.
It takes careful strategizing to win the Rooler cards and earn their 30
points.
I’ve heard that I can play Roolz
with any deck. Is that true?
No. The truth is that you can play any game with a Roolz deck.
But only a Roolz deck has
the six suits and 100 cards necessary for a game of Roolz. True,
you can take out two of
the suits and play a pedestrian bidding game if you want to, but we have
yet to meet the
person who knows the excitement of a six-suited bidding game and
opts to go back to four
suits. It’s kind of like going back to training wheels, if you catch
our drift.
I really like the concept of a blank card. Why hasn’t anybody else thought of it?
Good question.
If your free computer game is so good, why should I bother buying the card game?
The computer game only simulates the four-player game and can only be played
by one
person at a time. If you want to enjoy the thrills of two-, three-,
four-, five-, and six-player
competition, you have no choice but to get yourself a deck of Roolz cards.
Also, without
registering, you can only play the game 'legally' for 15 days.
Is it safe to say that since Roolz has twice as many trumps as other games, Roolz is twice as exciting?
Actually, trumps tend to be measured on a logarithmic scale (just like
the Richter scale, for
instance), so a game with two trumps promises roughly ten times the excitement
of a game
using only one trump.
What’s a logarithm?
See Infrequently Asked Questions.
When should I play the blank card?
You
can play the blank card absolutely whenever you want. It is a good
idea to play it when
otherwise you would have to play a card that you don’t want to (i.e., a
point card, a trump
card). Use the blank card to "stretch" your trump or hold onto a
valuable card one more
round.
Supposing I win the bid, what cards should I get rid of?
It
is usually advisable to rid yourself of as many suits as possible.
By doing so, you will be
able to trump whenever those suits are led. However, since you aren’t
allowed to throw
away point-value cards (15s, 14s, 10s, 5s, Roolerz), this is not always
possible. In such a
case, get rid of low denominations.
Which suits should I call trump?
Your
strongest suit (the one of which you have the most cards and the
highest cards) should
be high trump and your second strongest suit should be low trump.
There’s no clear strategy
for deciding between a greater number of low cards and fewer high cards,
though most
players usually opt for the higher cards.
When should I slough?
It is advisable to slough when you are sure your partner will win.
By ridding yourself of a less
powerful card (especially a point card you may have otherwise lost) and
holding on to an
extra trump, you have strengthened your hand considerably. Also, if you
play last and no
points are in the trick, you may choose to slough a low card rather than
waste a valuable
one.
Which is more valuable, the High
Rooler or the Low Rooler?
They
have the same value, but not the same power. Both are
worth 30 points. But since
the High Rooler is the lowest high trump card and the Low Rooler is the
lowest low trump
card, the High Rooler will defeat the Low Rooler.
Are there any tricks to remembering what suits are trump?
As
a matter of fact, yes. In the two-, three-, and four-player versions
we use the cards
we’ve taken out of the deck (0s, 1s, 2s) to mark trump. We place
the 2 of the high trump
suit face-up on the table next to the 0 of the low trump suit. Also,
after each trump has been
"broken," we rotate that card so that we know it is legal to lead
that particular trump.
Also, it helps to rearrange your hand consistently once trumps are announced
(for example,
all high trump cards to the very left and all low trump cards to
the very right). Should you
want to intimidate your opponents, move an exaggerated number of
cards to the far left.
Do you have a question not addressed
here? E-mail it to comments@roolz.com.