How to play Newmarket
The rules of Newmarket, and a game played out one move at a time.
The rules are below, and there are fewer of them than the pots suggest. If you learn by watching, press play: we deal a short hand for three on the real table and stop on every move to say what happened, what you could do, and which rule did it.
Press play and we deal a short game of Newmarket on the real table. It stops on every move and says what just happened and what you could do next.
The deal and the pots
Three to eight people and one full pack, ace high. The cards go out one at a time round the table and into one extra pile, the spare hand, which nobody plays and nobody sees. At three seats that is four piles of thirteen. With more, some seats end up a card ahead of the others.
Everyone starts the match with a hundred counters. Before each hand every seat puts one counter on each of the four pots, the A♥, K♣, Q♦ and J♠, and the dealer puts two. The seat after the dealer leads first.
Leading and following
To lead, play the lowest card you hold in any suit you like. You pick the suit, not the card. Then the next card up in that suit has to be played by whoever holds it, and that can be you again. The ranks climb two to king, then the ace.
Nobody passes and nobody decides anything mid-run. When the run needs a card, the table asks for exactly that card, and only the seat holding it can move.
Stops, and why the spare hand matters
A run stops at the ace, or at a card nobody holds. With every card dealt, a card nobody holds is sitting in the spare hand. When it stops, whoever played last leads again, lowest card in any suit.
That is where the thinking goes. A suit you hold a stretch of is one you control. A lead into a card you do not hold hands the table to somebody else, and they may keep it.
Pay cards, going out, and the match
Play the A♥, K♣, Q♦ or J♠ and you take everything on its pot. Play your last card and the hand ends there: every other seat pays you one counter for each card still in their hand.
A pot nobody claimed stays put and grows with the next deal. The deal moves one seat round, and the next hand comes out once everyone presses ready. The first seat to a hundred and fifty counters takes the match, and after the tenth hand the most counters wins, with a tie at the top a draw. Counters can go below zero.