How to play Skruuvi
The rules of Skruuvi, and a game played out one move at a time.
Skruuvi has plenty of rules, so read what you need and press play for the rest. We deal one Kitty game on the real table, from the bidding and the passes to the tricks and the count, then an all-pass misère, stopping at each step to say why. Kotka and the change of partners are in the text below.
Press play and we deal a short game of Skruuvi on the real table. It stops on every move and says what just happened and what you could do next.
The basic rules, short version
Four seats, two partnerships. A bid is a level from one to seven and a denomination, and it promises six tricks plus the level. In a Kitty game the top bidder takes a kitty and passes cards, then 13 tricks are played. Make the contract and you score, fail and you lose points. Partners change every four deals.
The table and the session
Four players, one standard pack, A high. Two partnerships, partners across the table from each other. Skruuvi is a distant cousin of Bridge, and Wikipedia says its bidding is similar to Bridge's, but there is no dummy: all four play their own hands. Can two people play Skruuvi? No, it needs exactly four, and this table seats exactly four. The name is Finnish for screw (Skruv-Whist in Swedish), after the way the bidding tightens, and Finns have played this descendant of the Russian game Vint since the 1800s.
A session is 12 deals in three sets of four, and each set is two Kitty games and then two Kotka games. Partners change with every set, so you sit with each of the other three seats once, and the table shows who your partner is this set. Each seat keeps its own running total, and every seat deals once a set.
The bidding
In a Kitty game everyone is dealt twelve cards, and four more sit face down in the middle as the kitty. The dealer bids first and the bidding goes clockwise. A bid is a level from one to seven and a denomination, and the denominations run misère, spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts, grand, lowest to highest. A bid has to beat the standing bid: a higher level, or the same level and a higher denomination. You may pass and bid again later.
A bid in a suit means trumps in that suit, and you promise six tricks plus the level. Grand is the same with no trumps. Misère is the reverse: no trumps, and you promise to win at most seven minus the level, so a level seven misère is no tricks at all.
Once somebody has bid, the auction goes on until eight passes in a row, two from each seat. A short one: the dealer bids one spades, the next seat bids one hearts, which beats it because hearts outrank spades, and everyone passes until eight passes have followed. That last bid is the kitty bid. Whoever made it is the kitty bidder, and they and their partner are the main side.
If all four seats pass at their first turn, nobody bids and the deal is an all-pass misère, below.
The kitty, the exchange and the second auction
The kitty bidder turns the four kitty cards face up for everyone and takes them, which makes sixteen cards. They pick any four and pass them face down to their partner as a packet. The partner, now holding sixteen cards, passes three face down: one to the kitty bidder, one to each opponent. Everyone is back to thirteen. The cards you were passed are marked in your hand.
With the exchange done, the main side bids again, only the two of them, the kitty bidder first, taking turns until there are four passes in a row. The last bidder is the declarer. A first raise has to beat the kitty bid, and the final level has to be at least five, so a kitty bid of four or lower must be raised. In our opinion this is the heart of the game: after the exchange, the two of them know what they can make.
If the kitty bid was below level six, the defenders may swap a card: the defender left of the declarer passes one face down to the other defender, who returns one. The defender who would start it may decline. Then comes doubling. The defender left of the declarer may double or pass, then the other defender. If a defender doubled, the main player left of the doubler may redouble or pass, then the other main player. A double doubles the score for the contract and a redouble triples it. Three times is the top.
Playing the hand
The seat left of the declarer leads any card. You must follow suit if you can, and if you cannot you may play anything. The highest trump takes the trick, or if there is none, the highest card of the suit led. The winner leads next, and there are 13 tricks.
The declaring side needs six plus the level in trumps or grand, so at least 11 tricks at level five. In a misère they need no more than seven minus the level. The table keeps the count of tricks for each side against that goal.
Scoring
A made contract at level five, six or seven scores 25, 35 or 50 in trumps or grand, and 10, 20 or 35 in misère. Each trick over the contract adds 2 at levels five and six, and nothing at seven. There is no over in a misère, so each trick you took below your allowance counts the way an overtrick does. A failed contract scores nothing for the contract, and the main side pays for it: 5, 10 or 15 for the first undertrick in trumps or grand, 10, 15 or 20 in misère, and 5 for each further one. Doubled scores twice, redoubled three times.
A misère has a second bill, the aces. Each ace a side takes costs that side the number of the trick it fell in, whether the contract was made or failed. An ace in trick four costs 4, one in the last trick 13, and doubles never multiply it. Each deal comes out as one signed number for a side: the contract score, minus the aces that side took, plus the aces the other side took. The other side gets the negative.
After the fourth deal of a set, each seat adds the set to its total: partners add their side, opponents subtract it, so the totals always add to zero. After the twelfth deal the session is over and the highest total wins, and a tie at the top is a draw.
Kotka and the all-pass misère
A Kotka game has no kitty. All 52 cards are dealt, 13 to each hand. The bidding works as in a Kitty game, except that it starts at level six and the order changes: spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts, misère, grand, so here misère ranks second highest. The top bidder passes any four cards to the partner, who passes any four back. Then the main side bids again, the opponents cannot swap, and doubling goes as before.
In an all-pass misère, from either kind of deal, nobody has a contract. In a Kitty game the four kitty cards are dealt one to each seat. The seat left of the dealer passes a card to its partner, who passes one back, then the dealer's partner and the dealer do the same. The dealer may double first, then each seat in turn until somebody does, and then the doubler's two opponents may redouble. The seat left of the dealer leads. Each trick costs the side that takes it one point, and the aces cost what they cost in any misère. A double multiplies the trick points and never the aces.
What we left out
We follow John McLeod's Skruuvi page, drawn from the Helsinki Finnish Club's 2016 handbook, with the short 12-deal session. Left out: Bolshevik, the option where one seat plays a level seven contract, usually seven misère, alone against the other three; the 24-deal session; the older scoring; and the signalling by the order of a passed packet, which here is a set of cards with no order. Where that page is unclear we made calls, and the menu page says which.