Clubs by Alex Chen, James Cook, Patrick LaVictoire with thanks to Cal Poly REU 2004 for beta testing
Luckily, Patrick saved and wrote up the rules for posterity.
Players: 3 or 4 To Win: Have the greatest score when someone hits -100. Overview: Like hearts or spades, this is a game of tricks; the winner of a hand takes the cards and leads off the next. Cards are worth certain numbers of points. Twist #1-Throwing Clubs: The notion of following suit is altered, but not eliminated. You must play either the suit that was led, or a club, unless you are out of both. A player who leads in clubs may declare another suit (meaning that others must play either that suit or a club unless out of both), or may declare clubs alone. Taking Tricks: Clubs are, in fact, a semi-trump suit. Only clubs and the suit which was led are eligible to win a trick. Each club is ranked slightly higher than the corresponding card of another suit. For example, if diamonds are led, the seven of clubs beats the seven of diamonds but not the eight of diamonds. Start: Deal out the deck. If there are 3 players, leave the last card face down on the table. The two of clubs leads off (unless nobody has it since it’s in the middle, in which case the 3 of clubs leads). If there were three players, then the player who takes the final trick takes the extra card. Scoring: At the end of the hand, tally the cards in the tricks you’ve taken as follows: First, give yourself -1 for each card you have. Give yourself back +3 for every club you have except for the Jack of clubs; instead, tally an additional -10 for the Jack of clubs. This final tally is your score for the round, unless... Twist #2-Scrambling: If one player’s tally is -26 or worse, then everyone recounts their score for the hand by a new formula. There is now no per-card penalty; each club is worth -3 except for the Jack of clubs, which is worth + 10. This rule exists to further complicate the strategy, and to make it possible not to get screwed too badly by a terrible hand.