Bummert

A domino based trick-taker for 2-5 players.

Trick-taking games are some of my favourite.

They’re quick, easy to learn, and are flexible enough to provide an enormous amount of strategic variety.

Years before, I had bought a set of domino playing cards and hadn’t the foggiest what to do with them since they were way too big to play Domino, Chicken’s Foot, or Mexican Train with.

Then, I recalled the time I made Conveyor Rummy: double sided cards, you can use numbers as suits!

With that in mind I quickly fashioned a basic must-follow trick-taker.

At the time, my most played trick taking game was Schnapsen. An Austrian variant of the game Sechsundsechzig (Sixty-Six). A core feature in Schnapsen is the ability to meld cards to score extra points.

So, with Schnapsen in my bag I added a melding system inspired in part by the one in Conveyor Rummy.

Additionally, Schnapsen uses a point system called “Bummerl”, which essentially is penalty points. The word Bummerl sorta sounds like the Danish word for a mistake: Bummert. Thus, the name was born.

After shuffling, one card is flipped face up.

This card is the “scoring objective”. The scoring objective simply indicates which subset of cards score points in the game.
One of the numbers must appear on a card for it to be worth any points at all.
If the scoring objective is a double (same number on both sides) then cards with that number score double.

The player to lead the trick may lead any card. The player who follows then has to “follow suit” on one of the two sides. Once the second player has played a card, the suit is locked in, and everyone else has to follow the locked suit.
The player who played the highest card in the locked suit takes the trick and leads the next trick.

Before drawing cards, the new lead player may meld exactly three cards from hand in order to score some additional points.

Then, everyone in turn order draws a new card, and a new trick begins.

What You Need to Play

  • A Set of “double 9” dominoes or domino cards. “Double 9” means the highest domino is one with a 9 on both sides.
  • A score pad and a pen. Score cards are provided in the back of the rulebook.

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