Thirty-One
Thirty-One (also called Blitz or Scat) is a fast parlor card game. Hold three cards, improve your best single-suit total, knock when you like your hand, and hope you are not lowest when the cards flip.
Objective
Avoid having the lowest best-suit total when a round ends. Be the last player with lives remaining.
Players
3–8 players (platform max seating).
Cards and Values
Uses a standard 52-card deck. Within a suit:
Your hand total is the highest sum among the four suits using only the cards of that suit in your three-card hand. Three cards of one suit totaling 31 is perfect.
Setup
1.
Each player starts with 3 lives.
2.
Deal 3 cards face down to each living player.
3.
Place the rest face down as the stock.
4.
Flip the top stock card to start the discard pile.
5.
Play begins with the player left of the dealer. The first dealer rotates between games: Player 1 deals the first game, Player 2 the next, and so on round the table.
Turn
On your turn, before drawing, you may knock (see below).
Otherwise:
1.
Draw one card — either the top of the stock or the top of the discard.
2.
Discard one card face up (you may not discard the same card you just took from the discard pile).
Your hand returns to three cards.
Knocking
At the start of your turn (before drawing), you may knock. Every other living player then takes exactly one more turn (draw and discard as usual). After those final turns, all hands reveal.
Ending a Round Without a Knock
If the stock runs out and nobody has knocked, the round ends after the player who took the last stock card discards — hands reveal immediately.
Scoring the Round
1.
Each living player’s best suit total is computed.
2.
The player(s) with the lowest total each lose one life.
3.
Ties for lowest: all tied players lose a life.
Winning
When only one player still has lives, that player wins the match. If everyone is eliminated on the same reveal, the match is a draw.
Tips
•
Ace-high flushes (e.g. A-K-x of one suit) are very strong.
•
Mixed suits often score in the teens — knock only when you are confident others are worse.
•
Watching the discard tells you which suits opponents are abandoning.