Stichen (Stick 'Em)
Based on the game by Klaus Palesch
A trick-taking game that breaks the rules. There's no obligation to follow suit, every suit except the one led is trump, and you choose your own "misery color".
Setup
As many suits as players — all 15 cards per suit (ranks 0-9, X, Jack, Queen, King, Ace)
Clubs0–A
Spades0–A
Hearts0–A
Diamonds0–A
Caps0–A
Switches0–A
Planets0–A
Stars0–A
Also needed: Score pad
Use as many suits as you have players. Pick any suits — suit identity doesn't matter, only that each player corresponds to one full suit's worth of cards. From each chosen suit, take all 15 cards: ranks 0-9, X, Jack, Queen, King, Ace.
| Players | Suits used | Cards total |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | 3 | 45 |
| 4 | 4 | 60 |
| 5 | 5 | 75 |
| 6 | 6 | 90 |
Rank mapping:
- 0 through 9 = face value
- X = 10
- Jack = 11
- Queen = 12
- King = 13
- Ace = 14
Choose a dealer however you like. Shuffle all the cards together and deal them out evenly, 15 per player.
Choosing your misery color
Before any trick is played, everyone picks their misery color in a single simultaneous reveal.
- Each player looks at their hand and chooses 1 card to place face-down in front of them.
- When everyone has chosen, all players flip their card face-up at the same time.
- The suit of your chosen card is your misery color for this round. The rank of that card immediately counts against you as negative points (see scoring).
Your misery card is locked in once revealed — you can't swap it mid-round.
You now hold 14 cards in your hand. The face-up misery card stays in front of you as a reminder; it's not a card you'll play.
Multiple players may pick the same misery color. There's no rule against it, and it happens often when several players were all stuck with a bad hand in the same suit.
Gameplay
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick. They play any card face-up into the middle — that card's is the lead suit for this trick.
Going clockwise, each other player plays one card. Here is the critical difference from most trick-taking games: you never have to follow suit. You may play any card from your hand, regardless of its suit or rank.
Determining the winner
After all players have played, resolve the trick with these rules, checked in order:
- Every suit other than the lead suit counts as trump — except 0s, which are never trump regardless of suit.
- If all played cards match the lead suit, the highest-ranked start-color card wins.
- If one or more trump cards (non-zero cards in any non-lead suit) were played, the highest-ranked trump card wins.
- If two or more trump cards tie in rank (same rank, different non-start suits), the one played first wins.
The trick winner gathers all the played cards face-down in front of them and leads the next trick. Play continues until all 14 tricks have been resolved.
Scoring
After all 14 tricks, look at the cards you've collected (plus your face-up misery card, which always counts against you).
- Each card not in your misery color scores +1 point — no matter what its rank is.
- Each card in your misery color scores negative points equal to its rank (0 through 14 negative points). The misery card you chose at the start counts as its rank too.
Add it all up. A positive total is good; a negative total is bad.
Example
Your misery color is Clubs♣. You chose the 0♣ as your face-up card, and over the 14 tricks you captured 20 cards — 3 of them Clubs (the 4♣, 7♣, and Q♣) and 17 of them other suits.
17 non-Club cards × +1 = +17
0♣ (misery card) = −0
4♣ captured = −4
7♣ captured = −7
Q♣ captured (rank 12) = −12
Round total = −6
One heavy misery-color card can undo a whole round's worth of +1s. Getting stuck with an Ace or King of your misery color is catastrophic — a single A of your misery color is worth −14 on its own, wiping out 14 non-misery captures.
Winning
Play 5 rounds (or any number you agree on beforehand — deal rotates each round). Total the scores across all rounds. Highest overall score wins.
