Farfalia
Farfalia Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Overview and Aim of the Game
A game of Farfalia is composed of several hands, depending on the number of players.
The aim of the game is to take tricks and collect appropriate cards to form a combination as similar as possible to the one proposed by Farfalia.
Contents
- A deck of 52 cards, divided into four suits (red, green, blue and orange) with numbers from 1 to 13 and symbols of strawberries, leaves, fishes, seashells and butterflies;
- 25 subject cards, five cards for each family: the butterfly family and the four other symbols;
- 10 special wild cards with white background and with the symbols of the five families (2 cards per family);
- 5 team cards;
- these rules.
Preparation
Basic Game for Five Players
Here are the basic rules for playing with five players. You can find additional rules for experienced players as well as variations for a different number of players farther on.
Definition of 'Trumps': for players unfamiliar with this term, a 'Trump suit' is a suit that has been chosen to be better than the other suits. This means that if a trick contains a card (or cards) of the trump suit the highest card of the trump suit will win the trick.
The owner of the game selects a dealer for the first deal, or you can choose randomly. Divide the playing deck from the subjects cards. Remove the wild cards from the deck: they are used only with the variants.
The dealer plays alone, while the other players will be formed into two teams of two players each. See the figure below: if the dealer is player A, then one team will be players B and D, and the other will be C and E. The dealer hands out the team cards: he gives the blue cards to one team, the green cards to the other team, and keeps the brown one for himself. Each player keeps his team card face up in front of him: this helps to remind everyone which team the player belongs to, and is also a useful reminder for scoring. Once the hand is over, the new dealer will be the player with the fewest points (in case of a tie, the tied player sitting closest to the left of the current dealer). This will cause the teams to change. For example, if the dealer is player A, then the teams will be: A and D, and B and E.
[Figure: five seats around a table, labelled A (top), B (right), C (bottom right), D (bottom left) and E (left).]
The dealer shuffles the playing deck and deals 10 cards face down to each player and 12 cards to himself. After he inspects his hand the dealer discards two cards of his choice (these are set aside face-down) and announces the suit (strawberries, leaves, fishes or seashells) that will be "trumps" or that the hand will be played with "No Trumps." If there is no trump, then no suit is worth more than the others. The advantage the dealer has of selecting his ten cards and then choosing trumps (or 'no trumps') is compensation for not having the help of a partner.
After the dealer has declared the trump Suit (or 'No Trumps'), he shuffles the subject cards face down; then he turns five cards from this stack and lays them face up in a row on the table so that everyone can see. The subjects on these five cards show which subjects have been chosen by Farfalia for this hand.
Example. The dealer turns over these five subjects. For the current hand, players must try to reproduce this set: a butterfly, two strawberries, a fish and a seashell.
Important Note: Each butterfly proposed by the magazine must be reproduced, with the playing cards, using any card with a butterfly, i.e. any card with value 8, 10 or 12, of any suit. Any other subject must be reproduced with a card with number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11 or 13 of the appropriate suit - not one of the cards with butterflies. The card depicted here, for example, is played as 10 of its suit, but as far as matching the set is concerned, it only counts as a butterfly.
Important Note: Butterflies have no effect on the taking of tricks, they only affect the scoring at the end of the hand.
The Game
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick. Proceeding clockwise, each player plays a card from his hand (the order in game play is always clockwise, regardless of how teams are formed).
You must follow suit if you can, but if you cannot then you may "trump" (assuming the hand is not being played 'No Trump'), i.e. play a card of the trump suit, or play a card from any other suit. After all players have played a card, check if any of them are from the trump suit. If so, then the highest trump card takes the trick. If no trump card was played, then the highest card of the suit that was led takes the trick. The winner of the trick then leads the first card of the next trick.
When you take a trick, you may remove one card only to try to meet the set chosen by Farfalia (i.e., a card that shows a symbol that matches one of the five subject cards). This card is placed face up in front of you. Often, a trick will include more than one matching card, but you may only set aside one card from each trick. The rest of the cards in the trick are set aside and score nothing. You may not tell your partner which card to remove! The player who took the trick must decide for himself. The aim of the hand is to take tricks so you and your partner (or yourself, if you are the dealer) can remove five cards (or as many as possible) that match the face up subject cards. Scoring five matching cards exactly will score the maximum points for the hand.
Important Note: If you take a trick that does not include any matching cards, then you may not remove a card from that trick. Also, you can not take more cards than you need to match the subjects.
Example: If the subject cards show only two butterflies, then you cannot collect more than two butterfly cards from tricks you and your partner take.
Example: Andrew, Barbara, Carl, Daniel and Emma are playing a hand. Andrew is the dealer; Barbara is teamed with Daniel and Carl with Emma. The trump suit is 'Orange'. Barbara leads the trick by playing 3 Blue (Fishes), Carl plays 5 Fishes. Daniel would like to play a trump card (Orange) but has a Blue card (the 11) and must play it to follow suit. Emma plays 2 Fishes and Andrew, who has no Blue cards, chooses to play 3 Red (Andrew has trump cards, but he chooses not to play any for the moment). Daniel wins the trick: no trump cards have been played, and he played the highest card in the leading suit, Blue.
Among the cards just taken, Daniel chooses one with a Fish (the number has no importance) to match the subject cards chosen by Farfalia (see the example above for the subject cards). Daniel keeps this card face up, and turns the others face down.
Daniel starts a new trick by playing 4 Green (Leaves). Emma plays 13 Leaves, Andrew 2 Leaves, Barbara 6 Leaves and Carl 7 Leaves. Emma wins the trick. Since there are no cards that match the subjects, she cannot choose any!
Emma now plays 13 Blue. Andrew plays 10 Red (he has no Blue cards), Barbara has run out of Blue cards too and plays 7 Seashells. Carl has finished his Blue cards too so he plays 4 Seashells. Daniel plays 4 Fishes. Barbara wins the trick by playing the higher trump.
From this trick, Barbara may select one of the Seashells, or the 10 Red as a Butterfly (not as one of the two strawberries!). Barbara cannot choose Fishes, since his team mate Daniel already has all the fishes they need to match subject cards. If the subject cards would have showed more than one Fish, Barbara could have chosen another Fish card.
End of the Hand and Scoring
When all cards have been played the hand is scored according to how well each team has matched the subject cards. The number of matching cards the team has collected determines their score for the hand:
- 1 match = 1 point
- 2 matches = 3 points
- 3 matches = 6 points
- 4 matches = 10 points
- 5 matches = 15 points
Points scored by a partnership are awarded to both players (i.e. they are not split). The dealer scores points on his own.
Example. As the illustration shows, here are the scores for each player: Carl and Emma, a partnership, score 10 points each (4 matches); Barbara and Daniel, a partnership, score 6 points each (3 matches); Andrew, playing alone, scores 3 points (2 matches).
New Hand
At the end of the hand, the new dealer (the player with the lowest score) takes the five subject cards and returns them to the subject stack, which is reshuffled. The dealer also shuffles the entire playing deck and deals the cards as explained above. Just like the first hand, after the dealer has set aside two cards and declared the Trump Suit or "No Trumps," five subject cards are turned face up from the top of the subject stack. Remember that when the dealer changes, partnerships also change. Deal the team cards again.
Third and Final Hand
After two hands are finished, a third and final hand is played. At the end of this hand, players score double points (5 matching cards = 30 points, 4 = 20, etc.).
Winning the Game
After the third deal, the players with the two highest scores are the winners.
In case of more than two winners (because of ties), those players share the victory.
Chinkway! - Farfalia for Experts (5 Players)
10 Hand Game
For a longer game you may play with the original rules for 10 hands, plus an extra hand.
During the first five hands, the two players sitting to the left of the dealer will play as partnership, as are the two players sitting to his right. The dealer plays on his own. For each new hand, the dealer is the player to the left of the last dealer.
Example: If the dealer is player A, then B and C will play as partnership, as will D and E.
During the next five hands, the dealer again plays on his own; but now the first team will be formed by the player sitting to the left of the dealer and the player sitting three seats away from the dealer.
Example: If the dealer is player A, then B and D will play as partnership, as will C and E.
This means that during the course of ten deals each player will be partnered with each other twice and will also play twice without a partner.
The main game ends after 10 hands. Then there is one extra hand. For this hand players normally need to change seats according to their score (any 'tied' scores are broken in favour of the player who had the higher score in the most recent hand). The player in 1st position sits with the player in 2nd position to his left, then the 3rd, and so on (around the table it is: 1st = A, 2nd = B, 3rd = C, 4th = D, 5th = E). The 3rd position player is the Dealer for the extra hand and the 1st and 4th players play as partners, as do the 2nd and 5th scoring players.
After the extra hand, the player with the most points wins.
5 Hand Game
The dealer plays alone, while the other players will be playing in two teams of two persons each. Looking at the figure, if the dealer is player A, then the two teams will be formed by B and E (players sitting to the right and left of the dealer) and by C and D. For each new hand, the new dealer will be the player sitting to the left of the last dealer (in this case, player B), and the teams will change (in this case C and A, D and E).
This means that during the course of the five deals, each player will be partnered with each other once and will also play once without a partner.
Variations for Smaller Groups
Farfalia for Four
The game is played the same as with five players, with the following changes. The four players play as permanent partners, with the partners sitting opposite one another. The dealer deals 13 cards to each player. The five subject cards are turned over. If the first of the five cards turned is a butterfly the hand is played with "No Trumps". But if the first card is strawberries, leaves, fishes or seashells, that suit is the trump suit.
The player to the left of the dealer leads for the first trick and play is precisely the same as in the five-player version. However, no cards may be extracted from the first three tricks. In other words, scoring cards can only be pulled from the last ten tricks to match the set of subject cards.
For each new hand, the dealership moves one player to the left. After four deals, the partnership with the highest score is the winner.
Farfalia for Two or Three
When there are less than four players, one partner is replaced by a "dummy" player - a fictional player. The "dummy" is dealt a hand of cards normally, and they are arranged as follows: six of the cards in the dummy hand are laid in a row face-down. Six more cards are placed on top of these but are arranged face-up. This leaves a 13th card, which is placed face up at the end of the row, so the dummy has a row of seven face-up cards, six of them with a face-down card beneath them, as shown in the illustration.
When it is the dummy player's turn, his partner chooses and plays a card from the dummy hand - only face-up cards being available for play. Before the player taking the trick leads the next trick, if the dummy card played reveals a face-down card, that card is then turned face-up. Of course, if the trick was taken by a dummy card, it is his partner who selects any desired card from the trick but the lead for the next trick must come from the dummy hand.
Three Players
Standard Game
The dealer deals out 13 cards to each of the players and 13 are dealt to the 'dummy' player. Having examined his hand plus the seven exposed cards of the 'dummy' player, the dealer chooses the trump suit or 'no trumps'. The five subject cards are then turned over.
The players sitting to the right and left of the dealer play as partners; the dealer plays with the 'dummy' as partner.
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick and the game continues as described for the four players version. As with the four-player version, starting with the fourth trick the player taking the trick is permitted to remove just one card that matches the face-up subject cards (no cards may be taken from the first three tricks).
Scoring is awarded as usual. For the next deal the dealership moves one place to the left. The players to the left and right of the dealer now become partners (which means that the partnerships change each time) while the dealer plays with the dummy hand. Note that the hands are always dealt - Player A / Dummy / Player B / Dealer - in other words the dummy hand is always dealt in the space on the table between the other two players.
After six deals, the player with the most points is the winner.
Short Game
After three deals, players play an extra deal without a dummy player. The player with the fewest points becomes the dealer and deals 17 cards to each of the other two players, and keeps 18 cards for himself. The dealer chooses the trump or 'No Trump;' then he chooses one of his cards and sets it out of the game, and the hand starts. Each player plays by himself. No cards may be extracted from the first three tricks. After this extra hand, the player with the most points is the winner.
The number of played tricks stays the same: this means that at the end of the hand, players will have one card left (the wild card, if they didn't play it, or one of the other cards if they did).
Two Players
This is played in precisely the same way as the four-player game but the hand of each of the two partners is a 'dummy' hand, just like the three-player version.
The hands are dealt around the table in the order Dealer / Player / Dealer's Dummy / Player's Dummy.
After four deals, the player with most points wins.
Variants with the Wild Cards
Double You
At the start of the game, deal two wild cards to each player. At the beginning of each deal, each player may play one of his wild cards to double his score for that deal (independently from the score of his partner). The player in the lead may not play a wild card. For this variant, the symbols on the cards do not matter.
Burnin' Down the House
At the beginning of each hand, deal one wild card, face down, to each player (discard the remaining). These wild cards may be played without being forced to follow suit, but not as the lead card of the trick. Once the trick is over, the wild cards "burn" from the trick all cards with that symbol. "Burned" cards can not be used for scoring.