Coverta
Number of players: 2 to 6
Equipment: a deck of 52 French suited cards
Age: from 9-11 years old
Summary: each player follows their own secret matching rule. The goal is to be the first to discard all of one’s cards. The key to victory lies in deducing the rules of the opponents (in order to play your own cards in their stead) without revealing your own.
Mechanisms: Outplay (matching game), Shedding
Skills: observation, deduction, risk assessment (and, depending on the version played, speed)
Origin: game invented by Carlos Martin
Preparation
Each player receives 2 secret matching rules that they must respect when playing the cards in their hand. These rules are determined by “instruction cards” (jacks, queens, and kings), which are distributed as follows:
For 2 to 4 players: Shuffle the 12 instruction cards and distribute 3 to each player, face down. After looking at them, each player chooses 2 and sets the third aside, face down.
For 5 to 6 players, or if you want to make it easier to deduce the opponents’ instructions: Separate the 12 instruction cards into 2 groups according to their suit (spades and hearts on one side, clubs and diamonds on the other), then distribute one card from each group to each player, face down.
Players place their “instruction cards” on the table in front of them, face down, and can consult them at any time.
Place on the table, in view of all players, the following “memo sheet”, listing the different instructions and their correspondence with the jacks, queens, and kings of the deck of cards.
Distribute to each player a certain number of numeric cards (from Ace to 10, the Ace being 1), which will make up their hand. The number of cards distributed depends on the number of players:
2 players: 7 cards
3 players: 6 cards
4 or 5 players: 5 cards
6 players: 4 cards
The rest of the numeric cards are placed face down in a pile in the center of the table, this will be the draw pile. Turn over the first card of the draw pile and the person to the left of the dealer starts to play, the game continuing clockwise.
List of different instructions
Here is the description of each instruction card (jack, queen, king):
King of Spades (K♠): The new card must be greater than or equal to the previous card
King of Hearts (K♥): The new card must be less than or equal to the previous card
King of Clubs (K♣): On a number between 1 and 5 you must place another number between 1 and 5, and on a number between 6 and 10, another number between 6 and 10
King of Diamonds (K♦): On a number between 1 and 5 you must place a number between 6 and 10, and vice versa
Queen of Spades (Q♠): On a black suit (spades, clubs) you must place another black suit, and on a red (hearts/diamonds), another red
Queen of Hearts (Q♥): On a black suit (spades, clubs) you must place a red suit (hearts, diamonds), and vice versa
Queen of Clubs (Q♣): On a spade or a heart you must place a spade or a heart, and on a diamond or a club, you must place a diamond or a club
Queen of Diamonds (Q♦): On a spade or a heart, you must put a diamond or a club, and vice versa
Jack of Spades (J♠): on a number divisible by 3 or 4 (i.e.: 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9) you must place another number divisible by 3 or 4, and on a number not divisible by 3 or 4 (i.e.: 1, 2, 5, 7, 10) you must place another number not divisible by 3 or 4
Jack of Hearts (J♥): On a number divisible by 3 or 4 (i.e., 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9) you must place a number not divisible by 3 or 4 (i.e., 1, 2, 5, 7, 10), and vice versa.
Jack of Clubs (J♣): On an even number, you must place another even number, and on an odd number, another odd number.
Jack of Diamonds (J♦): On an even number, you must place an odd number, and vice versa.
Gameplay
Playing your own cards
Each player in turn tries to place one of the cards from their hand following the last card placed, respecting their 2 secret matching rules.
To determine which card has been played by each player at each moment, the cards are arranged in rows and columns, like a table: each player places all their cards on their own row, and a new column is started at each complete turn. Here is an example of a layout for 3 players:
Playing in someone else’s place
If a player cannot or does not want to play a card, they must draw a card. Then:
The player to their left has the first chance to play one of their cards in their place. If they seize their chance, they must play their card immediately, otherwise the opportunity passes to the next player, clockwise.
If no player seizes their opportunity and the turn returns to the initial player, the latter has the right to play the card they had drawn, provided it respects their secret rules.
To play in someone else’s place, you must have deduced their secret instructions, because the card we place must respect them. If we play in someone else’s place a card that does not respect one of their matching rules, they will show us in secret the instruction card not respected. We will then have to take back 2 cards from their hand, in addition to the card we had played, and we will no longer be able to play in their place.
Exception: if the error is due to the fact that the opponent has previously played one or more of their cards without respecting their own instructions, it is the opponent who retrieves the last card placed in their hand. The opponent also suffers the penalties associated with not respecting their own instructions (see below).
Non-compliance with one's own instructions
At certain points in the game, a player must reveal one or all of their instructions to one or more players. On this occasion, if someone points out a card that does not comply with the revealed instruction and this error had not yet been pointed out:
The player who detected the problem gives 2 cards from their hand to the offending player.
The offending player must keep the instruction card they did not comply with face up.
The pointed out card is marked with a token to prevent it from incurring new penalties.
End of the game
When a player places the last card from their hand, they reveal their 2 instructions. The opponents then check that all the cards placed by the player and not marked by a token comply with the 2 instructions.
If this is the case, they win the game.
If unmarked cards are found that do not comply with the 2 instructions, the penalties associated with non-compliance with one's own instructions are applied and the game continues.
If the draw pile is exhausted and no player can place any more cards, the game ends and the player who, having complied with their instructions on all unmarked cards, has the smallest number of cards in hand wins.
Variant: "stealing" the turn from opponents
In this variant, it is possible to play in place of an opponent whose pairing rules have been deduced before they admit they are unable to play and draw a card. Cards can be played from the moment the previous player has placed a card on the table or has drawn a card from the draw pile and as long as the opponent has not played a card or drawn a card from the draw pile. If several people want to play in place of an opponent, it is the first card placed on the table in the correct location that will be played, the rest of the cards must be arranged in the hands of those who took them out.
Game with specific cards
The rules described above are the adaptation to traditional cards of a game that uses specific cards. These cards and the associated rules are available in the following link: