FIVE How to play Five & Three
Eight tricks. Ten points. One card everybody wants. Five & Three is a four-player partnership card game — easy to learn at a kitchen table and deep enough to argue about all winter.
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The deck and the deal
Five & Three uses 32 cards: 8 through ace in every suit, plus the 7♦ and 7♣, and the two cards the whole game turns on — the 3♠ (worth −3) and the 5♥ (worth +5).
Four players form two teams, partners sitting across from each other. The whole deck is dealt, eight cards each, so every card is out there every hand.
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The bid
The first dealer is chosen at random, and the deal moves one chair clockwise after every hand. Starting left of the dealer, everyone gets one chance: bid 7 to 12, or pass. You are promising the points your team will take this hand.
You can bid in a suit or in no trump, which beats the same number in a suit and doubles the score both ways. The dealer goes last with the old privilege: they only have to match the high bid to take it. If the other three all pass, the dealer has to bid — no free hands.
When it settles, it sounds the way it always has: “Who got the bid?” “Lena — eight in hearts.”
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Playing the hand
Whoever got the bid names trump (unless they called no trump) and leads the first trick. Follow suit if you can; if you can’t, play anything, including trump. The trick goes to the highest trump in it, or to the highest card of the suit led. Take a trick and you lead the next one. Eight tricks and the hand is done.
All the while, two cards are loose: get your team under the 5♥, and dump the 3♠ on a trick the other side is winning.
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Counting up
Every trick counts 1. The team that took the 5♥ adds 5; the team stuck with the 3♠ loses 3. That is 10 points on the table every hand.
If the bidding team took what they promised, they score everything they took — doubled at no trump. If they came up short, they go down: the bid is subtracted instead (doubled at no trump). The other team keeps whatever points they took either way.
Example: you got the bid at 8 in hearts and took 9 points — that is +9. Take 7 and you go down 8.
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Getting out
First team to 52 wins, and if both teams would cross on the same hand, the bidding team gets out first. Sink to −52 and it is over. Once a team reaches 47, they can only score while holding the bid — so the endgame is always a fight for the bid.
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How we talk at the table
- “What’s the bid?”
- The number to beat.
- “Who got the bid?”
- Who is naming trump.
- “Eight in hearts”
- The bid, said the way it has always been said.
- “Made it” / “went down”
- Kept the promise, or paid for it.
- “Took the five”
- The bidding team won the trick with the 5♥ in it.
- “Stole the five”
- The defending team took the 5♥ away from the bidding team.
- “Stuck them with the three”
- Played the 3♠ into a trick the other team won.
- “Ran the table”
- Bid 12 and took every point. Frame it.
Quick reference
- Four players, two partnerships sitting across
- 32 cards, eight to each player, no kitty
- One bid each, 7 to 12, or pass
- No trump beats the same suit bid and scores ×2
- Dealer takes the bid by matching it
- Three passes force the dealer to bid
- Each trick +1 · 5♥ +5 · 3♠ −3
- First to 52 wins · −52 loses
- At 47, a team scores only while holding the bid
- Online: a reminder at 30 seconds, auto-play at 45
The best way to learn is one hand
Practice hands against bots are free and unlimited, so you can learn the bidding before game night. When you are ready, open a private table for your family and friends or join an open table any time of day.
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