President Variations

This collection of variations of President is part of the Invented Games section of the Card Games web site.

• Auction Scumbag
• Barry's & Les's
• Colin Neislen's Variation
• Marijnissen, by Martin Hulsman
• Scum of the Earth

Auction Scumbag

Nathan Hedt (nyhedt@picknowl.com.au) writes:

This is a slighlty different variation on the game of "Presidents" which we called "Auction Scumbag" - but make up your own appropriate title!

After the first round (after the first lead has been beaten by everyone who wants to and everyone except the player of the highest card or combination has passed), there is a break in play. Beginning with the President, each player may "auction" off cards in turn to any other player. With the cards face up (to eliminate cheating), the president will say, for instance, "Two Jacks and a ten" and the other players may then "bid" for these cards (always bidding the same number of cards as what has been auctioned). The auctioner can choose any of the bids, or decide to keep his own cards. This continues around to the scumbag, and then play continues from the person who won the first round, who leads a new card or combination in the usual way.

The auction process can be repeated, if players wish, after this second round. We have found that more than two rounds of auction is not helpful to the game because people have fairly "settled" combinations by then.

This variation produces some interesting twists to the game, especially if equal cards can beat the same combination or if a higher number of lower-ranked cards can beat a combination with less cards (eg if 4 threes can beat three of a kind).

Colin Neislen's Variation

Colin Nielsen (felixcat@geocities.com) writes:

I have been playing the wonderful game of Asshole for two years during almost every lunch hour. We have come up with some interesting rules you might want to know about.

1. basic rank goes like this: 3 of spades (beats almost everything), Jester/Joker (beats a triple, double, single or a 2), 2 (beats a double or a single), A, K, Q, J ... 3. Then there is 777 (wrath of god) and 666 (devil's hand) these two are equal and cannot beat each other but they beat everything else.
2. "Chump": or Equal play skips next player as you put it. Our way involves saying "Chump" in an obnoxious way while doing this.
3. Wizard Deck. We play with a deck of cards created for the game of "Wizard." It contains 4 jesters and 4 wizards. Jester's purpose has been explained. Wizards are wild but cannot be used as a 2, jester or 3 of spades or to create 666 or 777.

The Wizard deck with the 8 extra makes a deck of 60 which makes it easy to cheat unfortunately. On the other hand new comers seem to have a very hard time for a while. =}