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Gops Variations
This page is part of the Invented Games section of the Card Games web site. It is a collection of variations of the card game Gops, also known as Goofspiel.
| A game of bluff by Alex Randolph, also known in English editions as Raj. Each player has a deck of bid cards numbered from 1 to 15, which are used to bid for prize cards: there are mice with positive values and vultures with negative values. A mouse is won by the highest unique bid and a vulture by the lowest. Equal bids cancel. You can order Hol's der Geier from funagain.com |  |
| A two-player game invented by Frank-Sven Nestel. It is played with a pack of just 11 cards (originally numbered 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-13-16 but the new edition Pico 2 will have 11 and 12 instead of 2 and 3). The two players each place a card face down and expose them simultaneously; the winner a trick is the player of the higher card, provided it is not more than twice the lower card. If the higher card is more than twice the lower card, the lower card wins. The card that wins the trick is placed in front of the person who played and scores at the end; the losing card is put back into the player's hand and can be reused in future tricks. | You can order Pico from funagain.com 
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A variant of Goofspiel with some additional twists, contributed by Brad Chapman
Number of players: Two
Materials needed:
- One standard 52-card deck (no jokers)
- Pen and paper, if multiple rounds are played
Object of the game: To score the highest number of points
Number of rounds per game: Predetermined and agreed upon by the players
Start of a round:
- Each player receives all of the 13 cards of a particular suit
- The remaining 26 cards are shuffled and placed face-down in a stack between the players
- Each player picks up and examines his/her own cards
During each round:
- The top card of the face-down stack (the "auction card") is turned face-up
- Each player picks a card from his hand (the "bid card") and places it face-down in front of him
- At the same time, the players expose their bid cards
- For purposes of bidding:
- Numbered cards are worth their number of points
- Aces are worth one point
- Jacks are worth 11 points, Queens are worth 12 points, and Kings are worth 13 points
- The highest bid wins the auction card, with the following exception:
- Aces, deuces and treys win any auction against Jacks, Queens and Kings
- In the case of a tie:
- Players make an additional bid for the same auction card
- If the players run out of cards after a tie, then the auction card is discarded
- After each play:
- The bid cards are discarded, face-up
- A new auction card is turned face-up
- Discarded bid cards and played auction cards can be examined by either player (so that they do not have to rely on memory to know which cards have been used)
End of round: The round ends when all of the players’ bid cards have been played.
Scoring:
- After the end of each round, players calculate their scores by adding up the point values of the auction cards in their possession
- Numbered cards are worth their number of points, Aces are worth one point, Jacks are worth 11 points, Queens are worth 12 points, and Kings are worth 13 points
This variation of two-player GOPS was invented by John Conway, who declares that the name is an acronym for "Switch on Paired Spots". The play is exactly the same as in ordinary Gops, except that when the bids are tied, the two players swap their hands.
Bid is a 2-player GOPS variation independently invented (2008) by Brendan Winter
The rules are identical to GOPS but with the following variations:
- In case of tied bids, a new prize card is not added, players re-bid for the same card
- 26 cards are used for the prize pile, rather than 13. Therefore at least half the cards in the prize pile are unused, and players cannot be sure which cards will appear.
- The Ace is high and is worth 15 points
- Bid cards are revealed in a single motion, rather than face down then flipped
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Last updated 19th February 2009
