31 (En og tredive)

I learned 31 on the ferry from Uummannaq to Nuuk, Greenland. "En og tredive" is Danish for "31" and is pronounced something like "en-uh-TRAH-vuh." The Greenlandic language has no numbers over 12, so they use Danish numbers.

• Number of players

• The deck
• The bets
• Before play
• The shuffle, cut, and deal
• The play
• Strategies

Number of players

The game is best with four to eight players; six is optimal. It can be played with two or three, but it's not great.

The deck

A 53-card deck is used: the normal 52 cards, plus one joker.

The bets

The players each make three equal bets by putting three coins, dollar bills, hundreds, chips, whatever, in front of themselves. Throughout the game, players will gradually lose their three bets one at a time by putting them into a "pot."

Before play

Each player cuts the deck; whoever cuts to the highest card deals first. For this purpose, the joker is high, then aces, kings, etc. If two players tie for high, they cut again.

The shuffle, cut, and deal

The dealer shuffles. In Greenland, shuffling seems a rather cursory affair; often people do only three or four poker shuffles rather than the mathematically superior seven riffle shuffles. But the cut, done by the person to the dealer's right, is very important; if the dealer forgets to offer the cards for a cut, someone usually demands a re-deal.

Instead of cutting the cards, a person may knock them with his or her knuckles, indicating acceptance of the deck without a cut.

Each player is dealt three cards. The cards may be dealt one or two at a time, unless they have been knocked instead of cut, in which case they must be dealt three at a time.

After everyone has three cards, the next card is turned up to start a discard pile.

The play

It's easier to talk in the second person at this point.

Objective

You want to get your hand to total 31, or as close as possible, with cards of the same suit. Aces are worth 11; face cards and tens are worth 10; nines through twos are face value. If you have the joker, you can use it to represent any card you don't already have, so ace-joker-nine (if the ace and nine are the same suit) is worth 30, not 31, since the joker can't be another ace of the same suit.

A basic turn

When it's your turn, you take the top card of the draw pile or the top card of the discard pile, and then you discard at least one card.

Hiding discards

Usually you discard only one card, but since only the topmost card is available to the next person, you may want to "hide" a second discard - or even more. For instance, if you suspect the next person has the ace of diamonds, and you want to get rid of the jack (to make it harder for him or her to get 31), you might discard a junk card as well as the jack, with the junk card on top. You can discard as many cards as you want, and you discard them all at once. People are allowed to look and see what you've hidden.

If you discard multiple cards, then you don't have to discard on your next turn (though you may). If you don't discard, you announce the number of cards you have, in Greenlandic (ataaseq = one, marluk = two, pingasut = three), so that the next person knows not to wait for you to discard.

Getting 31

If, after discarding, you have 31 (remember - all the same suit), you show your cards to everyone else, the round is over, and everyone else must put one of his or her three bets into the pot. Then the next dealer (the deal moves to the left) shuffles the cards and deals the next round (after offering them for the all-important cut).

Getting 21 or over and knocking

If it becomes your turn and you already have at least 21 (in the same suit), then you may knock (rap your knuckles on the table) instead of taking a turn. (You can't draw a card and knock on the same turn.) Everyone must have had at least one turn before anyone may knock. If you knock, everyone else gets one additional turn. Then the round is over, and players put bets in as follows:

• Anyone with a hand worth 20 or less must put one bet into the pot.
• If everyone's hand is worth at least 21, then the player with the lowest total must put one bet into the pot. If players tie for low, all players with that total must pay one bet.

Of course, if someone gets 31 after there's a knock, then the round ends immediately, and everyone else must pay one bet.

Elimination of players from the game

If you run out of bets, you can still play until you are forced to pay again; then you're out of the game. If all players who are still in the game have no bets in front of them, then no knocking is allowed; play continues until someone gets 31 - that person wins the entire game.

Reshuffling the draw pile

If the draw pile runs out, then the discard pile is shuffled to form a new draw pile; play continues until someone gets 31 or knocks.

Winning the game

Rounds continue until all players but one have been eliminated; the player still remaining wins the pot.

Coup d'état

And, finally, the one rule that supersedes all others: Anyone who gets three aces (or ace-ace-joker) immediately wins the entire game, and that person collects whatever's in the pot and whatever bets are still in front of other players!

Strategies

Go for 31 or knock?

Obviously, the more people in the game, the more who are trying to get 31 - or even the "safe" 21 that likely avoids an automatic bet loss in the event someone knocks.

• With five or more players, it's vital to get 21 as soon as possible; then try to up your hand's worth until you get 31 or a high enough score that you feel comfortable knocking. Don't even think about 31 until you've got 21. If you're in the high 20s after only a round or two, knock immediately.
• With two or three players, the odds are that everyone will get 21 very early on, so go for 31, or the high 20s at least. Even after everyone's had only two or three turns, it's common for more than one person to have a hand in the upper 20s, so it's not safe to knock with the low 20s, the way it (probably) is with five or more players.
• With four players, it's hard to know whether to knock early or go for 31. Look at what the others are discarding and whether anyone is hiding discards. Obviously, someone with only two cards can't have more than 21, and even though that person will get another turn if you knock, the card he or she draws must be the same suit as the other two for it to help.

More on hiding discards

I don't think it's ever wise to discard more than two cards at a time. I saw people do it frequently in Greenland, but I never understood why. Even keeping, say, a two of diamonds is better than discarding all your cards: What if the next two cards you draw are the king and nine of diamonds? You'll have your "safe" 21, and you can then try to get something higher to replace that two. Also, discarding many cards at once lets others know that your cards are lousy, and that it's probably safe for them to knock.

The only time that keeping twos through nines is useless is if you're forced to play to 31 (that is, if you and the other remaining players in the game have no bets left, in which case knocking is disallowed). But there's still the fact that if you discard all your below-tens in this situation, you let everyone else know that you have bad cards.

With two aces, go for three

Three aces is an immediate win of the entire game, so if you are lucky enough to have two, it's best to go for the third, rather than focusing on 31 or 21. (Keep a ten-pointer the same suit as one of the aces, so that you have 21.) Remember that reaching 31 requires an ace or a joker, so every ace that you hold gives you peace of mind against someone else's having it.

For that matter, it's even better to have ace-joker than ace-ace, since drawing to ace-joker could give you 31 or three aces. Also enviable is ten-ten-joker, with the two tens different suits - since an ace or a ten in either of those suits (eight helpful cards!) will give you 31.

Be wary of discarding aces

The corollary is that you should avoid discarding aces. Hide them under other discards if possible, since discarding an ace may well give another player 31 or three aces. This happens especially often with very few people in the game. And if you want to be extra cautious, make sure the next person already has three cards if you're going to hide an ace: If your top discard is something the next person wants, and that player has only two cards, then he or she won't be required to discard, which will leave the next card in the discard pile - the ace you "hid" - available to the following player.

It's just when you're concentrating on getting 31, or 21, that someone pops up with three aces and wins the entire game - usually when you still have three bets in front of you and the three-acer has no more bets and is hanging on by a thread. Always keep the three-ace possibility in mind!