Abandon Ship

Standard Cards

👤 Players:

2-5

⏱ Time to play:

60 minutes

♟ Equipment:

A standard deck of cards without Jokers, and a way to keep score.

🧠 Designer(s):

James Ernest

Story: #

The rats are gone, but you’re still here. You and your greedy pals are hustling around the deck of a sinking pirate ship, trying to scoop up as much treasure as you can carry. You’ll need to collect plenty of loot, so you can buy your way into a lifeboat, and the best lifeboats are the ones with the most treasure already in them. It’s complicated. Or maybe you’re just not very smart.

In this game, Aces are worth 1 point, Jacks 11, Queens 12, and Kings 13. All other cards are worth their face value.

Disclaimer: This was a freely distributed game designed by James Ernest, distributed by Cheapass Games as a part of their Cheapass Games Poker Suite (no longer in publication).

Overview #

The game consists of several hands, or “rounds,” each of which ends when the last card is drawn from the deck, and the ship sinks. At the end of each round, players will compete to get on the lifeboats in a showdown, and they score points based on which lifeboat they board. If you board no lifeboat, you get no points for the round. The first player to earn 200 points wins.

Play #

To Begin Each Round: #

Shuffle the deck and deal five cards to each player. If there are only two players, deal five more cards and set them aside, face down. These cards will not be used. Play starts with the dealer, and the deal moves to the left after each round.

On Your Turn #

• If you do not have five cards in your hand, draw back up to five.
  • If you draw the last card off the deck, the ship sinks immediately, and you do not take the rest of your turn.
• After you draw, you have two options: you may
  1. Discard one card, or
  2. Pick a Fight.

Discarding: #

There are four discard piles, one for each suit. These represent lifeboats. When you discard a card, place it into the lifeboat of the appropriate suit, and your turn is over.

Fighting: #

To pick a fight, play a card into the center of the table, and declare which player you are attacking. That player has two options: he can surrender and lose the fight, or he can play a card of higher rank than the card you played. (Suit doesn’t matter.)

If your opponent plays a higher card, you may respond with an even higher card, or you may surrender. This continues until one player gives up, or can’t play a higher card.

The winner of the fight draws a random card from the loser’s hand. That card goes into the winner’s “board,” which is a faceup collection of cards on the table in front of him.

Board cards aren’t part of your hand. You can’t fight with them, discard them, or lose them in fights. They will help you in the showdown.

After the fight, all cards which were played in the fight get sorted into the appropriate lifeboats. (Think of it as other pirates picking up all the stuff you threw at each other.)

Important Restriction: #

You cannot play the last card in your hand, unless that card is a King. This rule ensures that the winner will always be able to draw a card from the loser’s hand.

Pointless Restriction: #

You can’t challenge a player who is holding no cards. You’d have nothing to draw from him, and you can achieve the same result by simply discarding a card.

The Showdown: #

When the last card in the deck is drawn, the ship sinks. At this point, it’s time for each player to bribe his way into a lifeboat, in the phase called the “showdown.”

Each player plays one card from his hand, face down. This card is called the Key Card, and it is a declaration of which lifeboat you’re running to. This means that you must be lucky enough to hold a card matching the lifeboat you want. If your hand is empty, which is rare, you will go down with the ship and score no points for the round. Once everyone has played a Key Card, reveal all the cards in everyone’s hand.

If everyone ran for a different lifeboat, there’s no contest. Each player gets the point value of the cards in that lifeboat. You do not score the cards in your hand, your Key Card, or your board.

If more than one person went for the same lifeboat, then only one player will get in. The points in the lifeboat will go to the player who is holding more points in the matching suit, including his hand, his board, and his Key Card. If there is a tie, it is broken in favor of the player who has the single highest card in that suit. As above, you score only the points in the lifeboat.

Scoring Example: #

It’s the showdown in a four-player game. Player 1 plays a Spade, Players 2 and 3 play Hearts, and Player 4 plays nothing because his hand is empty. Player 1 gets the points in the Spade lifeboat, and Player 4 gets nothing.

Players 2 and 3 have both gone for the Hearts lifeboat, so they must compete to get in. Compare all the Hearts they hold: Player 2 has the 6h on his board, played the Qh as his Key, and holds no other Hearts. Player 3 played the 2h as his Key, and held only the 3h and the 7h in his hand. Player 2 takes the lifeboat, with 18 total points of Hearts vs. Player 3’s 12 points. Player 3 scores nothing.

Winning: #

Play to 200 points. If two players break 200 on the same round, the player with the highest score wins. If two players are tied for the high score, they must engage in the embarrassing Caribbean Plank Walk tied together with a ten-foot rope and clenching knives in their teeth.

Strategy: #

• The cards that you discard and play in fights are crucial choices. Every card that you play in this manner will wind up in a lifeboat. On the other hand, every card that you win or lose in a fight will go in someone’s board.
• Early in the game, it helps to get a few cards into your board, to give yourself some leverage in the showdown. Later, you must do what you can to make sure you hold a Key Card for the right lifeboat.
• You will notice that the more valuable a lifeboat is, the fewer points it will require to board (the majority of that suit is in the lifeboat, and not in players’ hands.) Discretion is the better part of valor: it’s better to get into a small lifeboat than to try for a big one and lose. Learn to guess what the other players will probably go for, and play accordingly.

Variation for 6-8 Players: You can play Abandon Ship! with as many as eight players, by shuffling together two decks. Deal eight hands regardless of how many players are in the game, and remove the unused hands from the game. To resolve ties during the showdown, if both players have a card of the same rank as their highest card in their Key suit, compare the second highest cards in each hand, and so on. If tied hands are exactly identical, it’s time to set up the plank.

Date added: 11 October 2022

---