How to play Kille

The basic rules of the game

Each player gets one hidden card. Going round from the seat left of the dealer, you stand or swap it with the seat on your left, and five high cards refuse. Then everyone turns up, and the lowest card, any seat that was struck and any seat stuck with a low Harlekin each lose a life. Everyone has three lives, and the last seat with lives wins the pot.

The pack and what beats what

Kille is a Swedish game played with its own deck of playing cards, and the name belongs to the deck as well as the game. It has 42 cards: 21 kinds, two of each, no suits. From lowest to highest they run Blaren, Blompottan, Kransen, then the numbers 1 to 12, then Värdshus, Kavall, Husu, Husar and Kuku, the highest card. A high Harlekin ties with it. The three lowest, Blaren the mask, Blompottan the flowerpot and Kransen the wreath, all sit below the number 1. The top five are the matadors. A matador does not hand its card over: it refuses the swap, and what that costs you depends on which one it is. Two cards of the same kind tie. The 21st kind, the Harlekin, is the odd one out.

The deal and the swap

Everyone gets one card, face down, and the cards left over become the talon, out of sight. The seat on the dealer's left speaks first, going round to the dealer, who speaks last. Look at your card and keep it to yourself. The aim is not to be holding the lowest card at the end.

When your turn comes, you either stand or swap: you demand the card of the seat on your left, and that seat must hand it over, face down, and take yours. The exception is a matador. After a swap the turn goes to the seat you swapped with, who can pass your old card on, and any seat jumped over loses its turn. A card you swap away can be anything, a matador included, and the board asks you first.

The five cards that refuse

Going up the pack from the lowest matador, here is what each one does to the seat that asks it.

Kavall, the horse, and Värdshus, the inn, cry Kavall förbi and Värdshus förbi, pass the horse and pass the inn. Your swap skips that seat and goes to the next one, and a row of them is skipped in one go. The horse or the inn is turned up and stays face up for the hand. If the skips carry you past the dealer, you swap with the talon instead.

Husu, the pig, cries Svinhugg går igen, the pig bites back. The card you offered is struck. It travels back along the swaps it made, seat by seat, until it reaches the seat that was dealt it, and that seat is struck. It is you only if the card you offered is the one you were dealt. Everyone else along the way gets back the card they were dealt. Cards already turned up stay turned up, and the turn goes to the seat after the pig. Norway's Gnav has a cat that undoes swaps in much the same way, but there the seat that asked pays, where here the seat dealt the card is struck.

Husar, the hussar, cries Husar hugger, the hussar strikes. Your swap does not happen and you are struck, which costs you a life at the showdown. The turn goes to the seat after the hussar.

Kuku, the cuckoo, cries Kuku står, ingen byta får, the cuckoo stays and nobody swaps it. Your swap does not happen, the swapping ends, and everyone turns up. You lose nothing for asking. A seat holding a Kuku can also call it at any moment, on its turn or not.

A hand with a horse and a cuckoo

Five seats, a to e, with e dealing. a holds a four and asks b, who turns up a Kavall and says Kavall förbi. So a asks c, who holds an eight, and they swap. b never gets a turn, since a skipped over b. c now holds the four and asks d, who holds a two, and they swap. d now holds the four and asks e, the dealer, who turns up a Kuku and says Kuku står, ingen byta får. The swapping is over, and d loses nothing for asking. Everyone turns up: an eight, a Kavall, a two, a four and a Kuku. The two is the lowest card, so c loses a life.

The dealer and the talon

The dealer speaks last and has nobody on the left, so a dealer who wants a different card goes to the talon and draws the top card. A number, one of the three lowest cards or a Harlekin is yours, and the old card goes face down to the bottom of the talon, out of play. A Kuku ends the round, a Husar strikes the dealer, and a Husu undoes the chain of swaps. A Kavall or a Värdshus is set aside and the next card is drawn. A seat sent past the dealer by a Kavall or a Värdshus goes to the talon the same way, and the round ends there.

The Harlekin

The Harlekin, also called Killen, has no fixed rank. Dealt to you, or drawn from the talon, it is as high as a Kuku. Swapped onto you in exchange for another card, it is lower than Blaren, and you lose a life for holding it, along with whoever has the lowest of the other cards. If two Harlekins meet in one swap, both are high. Every Harlekin in a swap goes across face up and stays face up for the hand, so everyone knows who is holding a low one.

The sources split on this one, so here is how we call it. Killeboken, as Lyckans Talisman prints it, counts a Harlekin you are dealt as the lowest card. Pagat and English Wikipedia count it as the highest, and we follow them.

The showdown: who loses a life

When the swapping is over, or a Kuku has ended it, everyone turns up their card, struck seats too. Three things cost a life: holding the lowest card, being struck by a Husar or a Husu, and holding a low Harlekin. Two seats tied for lowest both lose one. A Kuku or a high Harlekin never loses on the lowest card.

Struck seats and low Harlekins lose first. Only then is the lowest card picked, from the seats that are left. Sometimes that would take everybody. Say three seats: one struck by a Husar, one holding a low Harlekin, one holding a twelve. The twelve is the lowest card left, so all three would lose. If anyone was struck, the lowest card is ignored, and only the struck seat and the low Harlekin lose. With no one struck, say a low Harlekin and a four at two seats, nobody loses. A hand never takes every seat's life, so a pot always ends.

Two or three seats left: better cards?

When only two or three seats still have lives, the first to speak may ask the dealer for better cards before choosing to swap. With two seats the dealer accepts or refuses, and an accepted ask reshuffles everything and the same dealer deals again. With three, the dealer refuses or says it depends, and then the middle seat decides. A refused ask goes straight on to the swaps, and that seat cannot ask again in the hand. Three accepted asks is the most in a hand. With two seats left, a Harlekin dealt to either one means the dealer deals again, and a Kuku is turned up at once.

Lives, pots and how a match ends

Every seat starts a pot on three lives, and the last seat with lives wins the pot: one point, and everyone is back on three. A seat with none left watches until the next pot. A match is a set number of pots. At standard length that is twelve for two seats, eight for three, six for four, five for five, four for six and three for seven or eight. Short is about half, rounded up, and long about one and a half times, rounded up. Rooms open on standard, and a game against the computers on long. Most points wins, and a tie for most is settled by one more pot between the tied seats. After every hand the deal moves to the next seat with lives on the left.

How many players can play, and what we left out

Two to eight seats here. Lyckans Talisman says Kille works best with six or more and up to about twenty. Two seats is the game's own endgame, played here as a whole match, and in our view four is a taster. No money changes hands here, so there are no stakes, no buy-back and no selling your card. Some pages describe Kille as a five-card trick game. That is Krypkille, one of the other games played with this deck, and we do not deal it.