Quinto (card game)

Quinto is a card game invented by "Professor Hoffmann", stage and pen name for Angelo Lewis (1839-1919), an English lawyer and conjuror. The description here is based on his little book Quinto: a New and Original Card Game, issued in 1907 by playing-card manufacturers Goodall & Son of London. The book is the size of a playing card, being designed to fit into a package with the cards. Notes in the book refer to different practices of play in Britain and America, suggesting that the game had already been current for a while. The game has never achieved great popularity, but continues to appear in some card game books. While not as original as the inventor suggests, it has at least two rare features: the possibly unique idea of a hierarchy of trump suits (see below), and the not quite unique use of a 53-card pack.

Pack and players

From highest to lowest, the suits rank ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠, and the cards within them A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 (but the Ace counts as 1 in scoring value, and is low if players draw cards to decide order of dealing). In addition to the familiar 52 cards, there is an extra card known as Quint Royal, which in the original Goodall packs had a design featuring five crowns. The firm closed down in 1922, and these special packs are now available only second-hand. However, as noted in the book, a joker (to be found in most standard packs of cards) can be used instead.

The game is for four players, with those seated opposite each other as partners (as in the bridge-whist family of games). The book also describes variants for three and two players.

Deal and doubling

Turn to deal (if more than one hand is played) passes clockwise. The dealer starts by setting aside, face down, the top five cards, to form what is known as the cachette, and then deals the rest of the cards, one at a time face down, clockwise, starting with the player on the left.

After looking at their cards, each player, in the same order, has in turn the option of doubling the value of tricks, but not quints (see below for scoring; this of course changes the balance). Partners cannot both double. If one player of each side doubles, the second double is called a redouble.

Play

Standard rules apply for most things. Player on dealer's left leads to the first trick, and each player, clockwise, contributes one card to it. A player holding a card in the suit led must play one, except that Quint Royal may always be played instead. The winner of the trick leads to the next, and so on. However, the rules for determining the winner of a trick are non-standard. Instead of a trump suit, or none, as in most trick-taking games, a higher-ranking suit trumps a lower. Thus the entire pack is ranked in a single sequence, from the Ace of Hearts, which always wins a trick to which it is played, to Quint Royal, which always loses (so a player holding it will try to play it to a trick partner will win), and the highest card wins the trick.