Somerset rules

The idea

Somerset is a bidding and trick-taking game for four, in partnerships sitting opposite. You bid how many of the 24 points in a deal you think you and your partner can take. Take at least that many and you score them. Fall short and you are set: the name comes from the fact that in bidding, zeal to win sometimes outweighs judgment, and some are set.

The cards

Fifty cards. Each card shows two numerals stacked like a fraction, but they are not fractions. The lower number is the suit; the upper is its rank in that suit. No card ever outranks its own suit number, so the 12/12 is the highest card of the 12 suit and the 0/12 the lowest.

The suits are unequal, which is the whole character of the game:

• the /0 suit is a single card, the 0/0
• /2 has 3 cards, /4 has 5, /6 has 7, /8 has 9, /10 has 11, /12 has 13
• plus the S/S card, which belongs to no printed suit

Count cards, worth 12 points

Seven cards are printed in red and carry a value in a circle. Everything else is worth nothing on its own.

Twelve points of count cards, plus one point for each of the twelve tricks, makes 24 points in every deal. Sixty-six wins the game.

Bidding

Each player in turn bids or passes, starting at the dealer’s left. Passing is not final: if someone raises, you may come back in when the turn reaches you again. The auction ends when a bid stands and everyone else has passed. If nobody bids at all, the hand is thrown in and the deal moves left.

The suit is not named while bidding. Only after winning does the high bidder name trump, choosing any one of the seven suits or No Trump.

Play

The high bidder leads first, then whoever takes a trick leads the next. You must follow the suit led if you hold it. If you cannot, play anything: a trump to take it, or a discard.

The highest card of the suit led takes the trick, unless a trump is played, in which case the highest trump takes it.

The S/S card

The S/S joins whatever suit is named trump, as its lowest card, below even the 0/8 if eights are trumps. That makes it a trump like any other: if a trump is led and it is your only one, you must play it. It is worth 3 points, the most of any single card.

Under No Trump it has no capturing power at all and may be discarded on any suit at any time. That is the only exemption from following suit in the whole game. Try to throw it on a trick your partner is winning.

The 0/0, the “Rover”

Printed as the Rover, and called the Jig at a good many tables. Same card either way.

The 0/0 may be played at any time, even when you hold the suit led. When it hits a trick where no trump has been played, it turns every double on that trick (2/2, 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12) into a trump for that trick only, and the highest double takes it. Once the Rover is down, other players holding the led suit may break suit too, but only to play a double, and only while the Rover can still promote it.

The Rover is a double itself, so it takes the trick if no other double appears. But it ranks below every other double, and any real trump, the S/S included, beats it and cancels the promotion entirely.

You may also name the 0/0 as trump. Then the trump suit is just the 0/0 and the S/S, the 0/0 becomes the highest card in the pack, and doubles lose their power. So when the 0/0 is led under its own contract, trump has been led and the S/S is the only card that can answer it: whoever holds it has to play it there and then. A double cannot be thrown instead, because there is nothing left to promote it.

Once the 0/0 has gone, the S/S is the last trump in the pack and takes any trick it is played to, including one you open with it. Leading the S/S is legal under every ruleset, and usually a poor idea, since it hands three points to whoever sits over you. Here it wins.

Scoring

Make your bid and your side scores every point it took; the other side scores nothing.

Miss it and you are set: double the shortfall comes off your score, and the other side banks double what they took. Scores can and do go negative. This is why the game is called Somerset, and why a greedy bid is expensive.

The four ways to play

Somerset has been printed by several publishers over a century and the rulebooks genuinely disagree. Rather than pick a winner, all four are here and Settings switches between them. Three are faithful transcriptions of a published source. The fourth is openly a house rule and says so.

The differences are real ones that change how a hand plays, not trivia. Whether the two spare cards are a kitty the bidder takes or lie face up for whoever wins the first trick decides how much you can bid on a thin hand. Whether the losing side keeps the points it took decides whether a hand you cannot win is still worth playing out.

Every rule here is taken from a published source, and the About page says which. The original rules and card decks are at somersetgame.com, maintained by the Childs and Wiersma families.