Newmarket is a card game, also known as Michigan, Boodle, and Stops. Popularly known as Newmarket in Britain, this game can be played by three to eight players. The object of the game is to eliminate all the cards at hand and win stakes by playing certain cards. A pack of 52 cards is used for this game, with the highest suit ranking card being Ace followed by K and Q, so on, and the lowest being 2. During game play, stakes are put before a layout. A layout board comprises of cards placed in a certain order from a deck of cards that are not used in the game. The layout is required for the placing of bets.

The layout for Newmarket comprises of three face cards of K, Q, and J and one Ace. These are kept in the preceding order of value, that is, from A to J. Usually the Ace of Hearts is used, the King of Clubs, Queen of Diamonds and the Jack of Spades in the layout. These cards are sometimes referred to as the pay cards or boodle cards. Before the players are dealt with their hand of cards, the dealer puts two chips on each of the layout cards and the players place one on each. The game follows a clockwise deal, which means that the player to the left of the dealer begins to play first. The turn to deal accordingly passes to the left of the initial dealer. All the cards of the deck are dealt one at a time and a spare hand is also dealt; if the number of players is not even then some players might receive more cards than others; however, this does not affect the game. The spare hand is not used in the game, but the players use their own cards that have been dealt to them.

The player to the dealer’s left begins the game, and plays one card. Any suit is allowed, but only the lowest card of the suit can be played first. The next player has to play the next higher card of the same suit, till the ace is played or the highest card of the suit, or no one is able to play (the cards of this suit could be in the spare hand). A card which no other player can follow is called a stop card. The person who played the highest card or a stop card must begin play in the next round. The same rule of playing the lowest card holds. During the play anyone playing a card that matches one of the layout cards wins all the chips placed on that card. When one of the players runs of cards, the game ends. The other players with cards have to pay one chip for each of the remaining card. These chips are won by the player who has no card at hand. The chips that are still present on the layout cards are used for the next game. These are the basic rules of Newmarket, although games are played with slight variations to these rules.
May 13, 2008, 7:05 pm

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