Five Cucumbers Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Contents
• The Different Cards
• Game Preparation
• Turn Overview
• End of the Round and Scoring
• Credits

Game Contents

• 60 playing cards (Four of each value from "1" to "15")
• 30 cucumbers
• This rules sheet

The Different Cards

• Ranking: "1" is the lowest card, "15" is the highest card. There are no suits in this game. So you are never forced to follow suit.
• 0 - 5 Cucumbers: This is the number of cucumbers the player is forced to take, if he wins the last trick with one of these cards.
• "2x": If somebody plays a "1" in the last trick, the number of cucumbers the player is forced to take is doubled.

Game Preparation

1. Place the cucumbers on the table, so everybody can reach them.
2. Shuffle all 60 cards and deal 7 cards to each player. You do not need the remaining cards for this round, set them aside.
3. In the first round, the youngest player leads the first trick.

Turn Overview

Five Cucumbers is played for several rounds. Each round consists of seven tricks. The goal: do NOT win the last (seventh) trick. The winner of the seventh trick takes his score in cucumbers! Then all cards are shuffled and a new round is dealt.

The youngest player leads the first trick. Then, the winner of the former trick always leads the next trick.

After the first card is played, each player in clockwise order plays a card in front of himself. You may play any card to lead the trick. The other players have the choice between the following two options:

1. They may play a card with the same or higher number than the highest card already played in this trick, or
2. They must play their card with the lowest number.

The player who plays the highest card, wins the trick and leads the next trick. If several cards are played with the same number and that number is the highest played, the last person playing that number wins the trick.

Example: Anne starts the trick with an "8". Paul plays a "10". Rachel cannot or does not want to play a higher card, so she is forced to play her lowest card, a "3". Finally, Camille plays a "10" and wins the trick. Camille then leads the next trick.

End of the Round and Scoring

The player winning the last (seventh) trick must take cucumbers. His winning card shows the number of cucumbers, he is forced to take:

Card	Cucumbers
1	0 cucumbers - see below
2-5	1 cucumber
6-9	2 cucumbers
10-11	3 cucumbers
12-14	4 cucumbers
15	5 cucumbers

If at least one player plays a "1" during the final trick, the winner of the trick must take twice the number of cucumbers!

Each player keeps cucumbers from round to round. If a player acquires more than five cucumbers in total, he is out of the game. Five Cucumbers are the most you can have! In this way, more and more players are eliminated from the game until the final two are playing for victory!

The player who won the last round leads the next trick. If that player won too many cucumbers and is out of the game, the player sitting to his left leads the next trick.

Credits

• Author: Traditional, arranged by Friedemann Friese
• Graphics & Layout: Harald Lieske
• Realization: Henning Kröpke
• English Rules Editor: Nikki Pontius and T.R. Knight
• Copyright 2014/2017, 2F-Spiele, Bremen/Germany
• Published in English by Stronghold Games LLC