Oh Heck!

Card games are a great way to recreate when there is not much space or when you need to adapt an activity from a few to many participants. I grew up playing a game called "Oh Heck!" It is a trick-taking game. Many people call these tricks, hands, or books. For the purposes of this post, I will just refer to them as tricks. For other trick-taking games, I have a list at the bottom of the post with a few links to specific decks.

Oh Heck!

Materials

• Card Deck (Just regular face cards)
• Pencil/Pen
• Paper

Play

1. Dealer shuffles and deals out cards to all players. Deal out as many cards as possible to each player, so each player has the same number of cards with a few cards left over. No player should have more cards than another player. 
2. Place the non-dealt cards in a pile face down next to the dealer.
3. The dealer then turns over the top card of the leftover pile and places it face up back onto the pile. The suit of this card is the trump suit for the first round. The trump suit will be automatically higher in value than any other card placed on the table of another suit. (E.g. if clubs are the trump suit, a 3 of clubs will be higher than any diamond, spade, or heart card, even if it's the Ace. Aces are high, so Ace of Clubs would be the highest card in the deck.)
4. Before any players play cards in the middle of the table, the group of players simultaneously bid how many tricks they think they will take. The designated scribe will write down everyone's bids. (We usually make our bids by putting out a number of fingers on the count of 3, so 1...2...Everyone's bid shown.)
5. The player to left of the dealer starts the first trick by playing a card to the middle. This cannot be a trump card to start. The only time a trump card can lead a trick is when it has already been played in another trick during the round. Or if you only have trump cards in your hand.
6. Going clockwise, each player puts a card in the middle. The card must be of the same suit that led the trick. So if the player left of the dealer played a heart, the next player must also play a heart. This rule is exempt if the player does not have the same suit as was led.
7. Once each player has played a card, the person who has the highest card will take the cards and put the cards to the side. The highest card must be in the suit that was led or be of the trump suit. Any other suits do not count in the rankings. (E.g. a diamond is led, clubs are trump, and two players put in heart cards. The heart cards cannot be the highest, even if one is an Ace.) These count as one trick taken. And these cards are not used again during the round.
8. The player that took the last trick starts the next trick. Again, a trump can only be led if it has already been played during the round. So, if someone put a trump card in the last round, the player can start with a trump.
9. This continues until all cards are played. So, if you start with each player being dealt 8 cards, there should be 8 tricks during the round.
10. The scribe writes down the scores for each player for the round. For players who got their bid, they get 10 points plus the number of tricks taken. (E.g. if a player bid that they would get 2 tricks, and they got 2 tricks, they would get 12 points.) For players who did not get their bid, they get the number of tricks taken during the round. (E.g. if a player bid 2 tricks, and they got 1, they would receive 1 point. If they bid 2 and got 3, they would receive 3 points.)
11. Once the points are written down, the cards all pass to the player to the left of the dealer, and this player becomes the new dealer. The dealer deals out one less card to each person from the last round. If the first round was 8 cards each, the second round will by 7 cards each.
12. The group repeats steps 2-11. This continues until you have played a last round of 1 card.
13. My family also adds a round where each person gets one card but cannot look at it. You hold it up on your forehead, and you can see everyone else's card except your own. Play is the same as all the other rounds otherwise.
14. We also play all the way back up to the number of cards we started with. So, if we start with 7 cards, we play seven more rounds from 1 card to 7 cards.
15. Winner is the player with most points.

Simple things to remember:

• You must play the suit that is led unless you do not have that suit
• It is okay to bid zero
• The trump suit changes every round depending on the top card of the leftover pile

If these rules don't make sense, and you need clarification, feel free to leave a comment, and I can edit what is written in the post.

Life Skills from Oh Heck!

I use this game a lot in my work as a new healthy leisure option. Most of my clients have never played this game before, so learning something new gives them a new option that is healthy leisure. When working with a lot of people who are dealing with substance use or poor coping skills, such as self-harm, new leisure options can provide a new excitement that they want to keep developing skills for. It can also become a new distraction for a while.

I also like to use this game as form of radical acceptance (DBT skill). I will talk about Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in another post. I use a lot of skills from DBT. Or it is also good for general problem solving skills, such as if you keep not getting tricks, then it's okay to just start bidding 0 for the round. It's also a great game for other interpersonal skills and boundaries as well.

Other Trick-Taking Games

Each of the below games are ones that I have played before. I can't remember all of the rules to most of them, but they are good to learn.

• Spades
• Hearts
• Canadian Salad
• Rook 
• The Crew 
• Skull King

In the list, card games without links are played with a regular card deck, and you can find directions on the internet or ask friends.  All card games with links are affiliate links to Amazon. "The Crew" is great for non-verbal communication, learning from mistakes, and strategy. My family also loves "Skull King" for it's many twists and turns that it can take. It's great for practicing resiliency and radical acceptance. It's made by Grandpa Beck's Games, and I personally like most Grandpa Beck's Games that I have played.