Tripoly: A Game of Family Fun

Kids always want to be around the adults and sometimes it is hard to find time to give them all of our attention. One great way to spend quality family time with our kids is to play a game with them, and Tripoly is a fun board game that can make spending time with the family fun again.

Tripoly is a unique card game that is a kind of cross between Michigan Rummy and Hearts. Everyone "buys in" for a dollar and is given a dollar's with of chips in denominations of pennies, nickels and dimes. If you don't want to play with real money, just pass out a dollar's worth of chips. You will use a lot of pennies, so make there are as many one cent chips on the board as possible. Now every player takes one penny and puts one cent into each "pot" on the board. This is called anteing. There are nine circles on the board so anteing will cost nine cents every round. The circles are: the 10 of hearts, the Jack of hearts, the Queen of hearts, the King of hearts, the Ace of hearts, the King and Queen of hearts, the 8-9-10 (of the same suit), the pot and the kitty. (If you can't find a Tripoly board at a game store one can be made fairly easily). Explanations of each pot and how to win it will follow below.

Now that there is money in the pot, one person deals the cards. The dealer deals himself two separate hands. Deal out all the cards, even if it ends in an uneven number. This is okay. Now everyone looks at their hands and the dealer chooses one of his two hands to look at. Putting all your suits together in order, you decide if you have a good hand. A good hand is defined by a hand that can win you any of the nine pots on the board. If you have any of the high hearts, you have a good hand. If you have both the King and Queen of hearts you have a really good hand, because you can win three pots. The 8-9-10 do not have to be hearts but they all have to be the same suit (this hand will hardly hit and the pot will continue to grow).

As the dealer, you act first. If your hand has no hearts and no other winners, you can throw it away and "take" your other hand. Simply toss your old cards aside and do not look at them again. However, if your hand is full of hearts and you want to keep it, you offer your other hand (that you have not looked at) up to the other players to bid on. If their hands have no hearts they may want to bid on it, and if two of the players get into a bidding war you can make a sizeable amount of money. Once the bidding has stopped it is time for the poker hand.

The player left of the dealer starts by announcing if he wishes to play poker and for how much. Normal poker rules apply here (one pair, two pair, three of a kind, etc). A player may pass if not interested, match the bet (put into the "poker" pot), or raise. At the end any player called must announce the winner (three of a kind) but does not have to say the specifics (three sevens). Play by the honor code. The player with the highest poker hand wins the poker pot and takes that money immediately off the board.

Now is the time to try and get rid of all the cards in your hand. The player that is the first one to lay down all their cards is "out" and wins the kitty. The other players must pay a penny for any cards left in their hands that they did not get to play. To start, the player with the 2 of clubs lays down their card and announces their hand. The play progresses in number order so the play with the 3 of clubs shouts out "3 of clubs" and lays down their cards as well. Play continues until you run out of clubs (since some of the cards where thrown away there will be breaks in the play). It is important to make sure you don't miss a card, so sometimes pause and ask to make sure no one has the next number, especially if there are younger children involved.

Once you have determined a break the last player to play plays their lowest card of the opposite color. In this case a red card is needed so the player plays their lowest card, whether it is a heart of diamond. You continue on the same way, until the red cards run out, then back to a black card. If a player is supposed to play a certain color but does not have that color they say "no black" and the player to their left starts the play with their lowest black. (If none of the players have black then play stops and you all put pennies equal to the number of cards you still have in your hand into the kitty and it sits there for the next round).

During this part of the round you will most likely get into the high hearts. Any high hearts that are played out of their hand onto the table are considered "played" and when the hand is down you get to collect any pots of cards you played. When someone goes out they collect the kitty and the other players collect the cards they played (like the Jack of hearts, for instance). If someone went out and caught someone else holding a high heart, this card did not get played and you can not collect your pot. The money sits there for the next round, making it a bigger pot. When all the played hands have been cleared you pass the cards to the person to the dealers left and they shuffle and deal (remembering to give themselves 2 piles of cards). Everyone antes again in all the circles and play begins over again.

Tripoly is a fun card game with different aspects that keep the game exciting. There is no set ending time; generally play ends after a certain amount of time or when one of the big pots (like 8-9-10 or King/Queen) is finally won. Try out Tripoly and see how much fun you can really have with your family!