Designed by: Mike Fitzgerald
Diamonds is a trick-taking game where it’s possible to win the game without winning a single trick.
The deck is made up of four suits: the classic hearts/clubs/diamonds/spades, but numbered from 1 to 15. Players are dealt ten cards each, given a vault (actually a cardboard screen) and a supply of (plastic) diamonds are put in the centre of the table. Each player also has three diamonds in front of their vault, an area referred to as their shop window. The dealer chooses between one and three cards, and everyone passes the chosen amount from their hand to the player on their left. Then play begins.
The leading player plays a card face-up to the table and, as is the habit with trick-taking games, players are obliged to follow suit if they can. The player who plays the highest number of the led suit wins the trick, and takes an appropriate action. If the led suit was diamonds they can take a diamond from the supply and put it in their vault, where it’s now safe for the rest of the game. If the suit was hearts they can take a diamond from the supply and put it in their shop window. If the suit was spades they can move a diamond from their shop window into their vault, and if it was clubs they can steal a diamond from another player’s shop window and put it in their own.
But you don’t have to win a trick to get an action. If you can’t follow suit, then obviously you must play a card from a different suit. No matter what the numeric value of this discarded card, you get to do the appropriate suit action. So it’s possible to get the most diamonds during a round simply by not following suit – although if you can follow, you must.
At the end of a round players count up their cards of each suit and the player who has the most of a given suit gets to do the associated action again. Tied players get nothing. If you’ve won no tricks at all, you get to make two actions of your choice! The deal now moves to the left and a new round begins. Play continues with as many rounds as there are players, and at the end of the game players score 2points for every diamond in their vault and 1point for the diamonds in their shop window.
It's not a war game, but as well as the mild Take That of outbidding players, there is the opportunity to steal from each other
Almost none. There are different approaches to take but ultimately you're playing a card.
Low. Having all high cards is great, but having all low cards can also be good. Not being able to follow suit can be very helpful. However your choices are not overwhelming.
After that first play Diamonds moves pretty fast, and the cards ensure randomness and imperfect knowledge about what's in play (unless you're playing with the maximum of six players, in which case all cards are used). Canny and fun.
2-6
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
It's quite a clever game, this, in that Diamonds can negate that feeling of having a duff hand that sometimes dulls other trick-taking games. The passing of cards at the start of each round can be key, as missing a suit can be quite helpful, so you might even choose to dump high cards of a certain suit in the hope you don't get passed the same suit from the player to your right. And during play you're more involved than with something like Whist, for instance, because not following suit is actually an active move with a reward. Neat.