How to Play

Rat T is best learned by following along with a sample hand or two. Our sample game will have four players. Let's get started!

First Hand

Each player recieves one card face down, and a Trump card is also dealt face up.

Placing Bets

Each player now bets how many rounds they will win within that hand. The number of rounds matches the number of cards dealt. So for this hand there is one round because each player has one card.

You win a round by having (in this order):

1. the highest card matching the suit of the Trump Card or
2. the highest card matching the suit of the first card played that round.

The player to the left of the dealer bets first, then it moves around the table until it gets back to the dealer.

Let's pretend that the bets placed were as follows (here's the hand again for reference):

Player 2 bets first, and they have a high card matching the Trump suit. They bet 1, thinking they have a good chance of winning.

Player 3 bets next, and they have a high card but it doesn't match the Trump suit. Since everyone only has one card, they take the chance that no one has a card that matches the Trump suit, so they bet 1.

Player 4 bets next. They have a low card that doesn't match the Trump suit. They bet 0, thinking they probably won't win the hand.

The Dealer, Player 1, bets last. The Dealer cannot place a bet that makes the total number of bets equal to the total number of cards dealt for that hand. In this hand, if everyone else had bet 0, the dealer is not allowed to bet 1 (since there is only one card dealt for this hand).

In this case, they can bet either 0 or 1 (the bet total right now is 2), so they bet 0, thinking they probably won't win the hand.

Playing a Round

The person with the highest bet to the left of the dealer goes first (if the dealer has the highest bet, they go first). In this case Player 2 goes first, and play moves to the left.

The winners of this hand are Player 1, Player 2, and Player 4 because they correctly guessed if they would win or not.

Scoring

Each player that correctly guesses how many rounds they would win in a hand gets 10 points + their bet for the hand. Anyone that incorrectly guessed has a score of 0 for the hand. That means our current score looks like this:

	Round 1	Total
Player 1	10	10
Player 2	11	11
Player 3	0	0
Player 4	10	10

Second Hand

In the second hand, the dealer moves to the left, everyone gets dealt two cards, and a new Trump Card is dealt:

Placing Bets

Betting starts with Player 3 and works its way to the left:

	Bet
Player 3	0
Player 4	1
Player 1	1
Player 2	1

Playing Round 1

Now that there is more than one card, a new rule comes into play: If you have any cards that match the suit of the first card played, you must play one of them. If you don't, you may play any card.

Player 4 goes first, since they had the highest bet to the left of the dealer, and play moves to the left, with each person choosing which of their cards to play.

Player 1 is noted as the winner of the round (they had the highest card matching the Trump Card suit) and we move to the second round.

Playing Round 2

Since Player 1 won the last round, they go first.

Player 4 wins this round, they had the highest card matching the suit of the first card played.

Scoring

	Round 1	Round 2	Total
Player 1	10	11	21
Player 2	11	0	11
Player 3	0	10	10
Player 4	10	11	21

Continuing the Game

Game play continues up to 7 cards, then works its way back down to 1. So the cards per hand for a game looks like this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (13 rounds total). Whoever has the highest score at the end wins!

Have Fun!

Start a Game