Ruth's Gingerbread

The day was December 31, 2015. The time was roughly 6:10 PM Central Standard Time. While thinking about the New Year’s Eve festivities that were going to take place later that evening, an idea for a new card game came to me. In fact, in just minutes, I had all of the rules laid out in my mind. When I arrived at the party, I announced that I had invented a new card game. I was eventually asked what the name of the new game was. Since I hadn’t named the game yet, I came up with a name on the spot – Ruth’s Gingerbread. Quite frankly, this name has nothing to do with the game itself, but nevertheless, I am happy that I came up with this name as I think it is an intriguing name for a card game. I think that name came to me because I had been recently thinking about Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which I have eaten at once, and since it was near Christmas, I think I was thinking about gingerbread cookies even though I don’t believe I even ate a gingerbread cookie this past Christmas season. Anyways, I convinced some friends to play the game with me. The first iteration of the game was good; however, it needed a few small adjustments. One of the main adjustments came to me in the ensuing 12 hours or so and more recently another adjustment came to me. This past Saturday night I was able to see those adjustments in action and I have to say that the second draft appears to be solid.

At this point, I know that you want to know the rules so that you can start playing Ruth’s Gingerbread yourself. First, you will ideally need a table that allows the players of the game to sit as close to equidistant from the center of the table as possible. Second, you will need a standard deck of cards. Leave one of the jokers in the deck. After shuffling the deck, to determine order, each person selects a card from the deck. Highest card goes first (2 is lowest, Ace is highest. Basically, the usual order of cards with the exception that, if the joker shows up, that is the highest card), then to determine the direction around the table, look at the cards of the people sitting to the left and right of the person with the highest card. Out of these two, whoever has the higher card will be the person that selects second once the game starts and the selection of cards continues to go around the table in a circle in the direction of the second person.

With the selection order determined, the game can get underway in earnest. Before starting, spread the cards out evenly in a thin layer on the table (this was my first important amendment). Going with the determined order, the players at the table go around in a circle selecting cards from the center. One thing to note, is that it is important to wait for a person’s turn to finish before moving to the next person as there are some things that can take place during a turn. A player always shows their highest card and keeps the other cards hidden. This is important because, if you draw any card in the two through five range, you get the option of trading hands with anyone at the table. So, knowing a player’s high card gives you some information about whether or not trading with them would be a good idea. The game continues to go around the table in this fashion until someone selects the joker. If you select the joker, you need to turn the joker over, yell “joker”, and then it is a mad scramble where everyone reaches out to the center of the table and grabs as many cards as possible. After the scramble, the game is over and everyone adds up their cards. The person with the highest point total wins with numbered cards taking the listed value, face cards being ten points, aces being eleven points, and the joker doesn’t count for any points (I think this is good because having the joker already gives a person an advantage in the mad scramble).

There is one final rule that I would like to mention, and that is the bluff. At any point, a player can bluff by turning over the card that they have selected on that turn and yelling “joker”. Anyone that touches the cards in the center of the table, including the person bluffing, is automatically out of the game and the game continues in the same fashion without them. It should be noted that there is a slight penalty for bluffing. That is, you don’t get to keep the card that you bluffed with (this was my second important amendment, which keeps people from bluffing all the time). It is discarded and doesn’t count towards your point total. So, ideally you want to bluff with low cards, not high. The cards of the people that get disqualified from the game due to a bluff are also discarded and don’t count towards anyone’s point total.

How exactly this game came to my mind, I am not sure, but it appears to be a solid and exciting card game. So, the next time you need to spice up your Monday afternoon or your Thursday evening or your Saturday morning or really anytime, think about getting some friends together and playing Ruth’s Gingerbread.