Which shed?

[davidn]

It looks rather like this, but less Windowsy

A few years before the senior honours project that would ensure that I never wanted to see another pack of cards ever again, we used to constantly play a card game that I always knew as Shed in the sixth year common room. The aim of the game is to shed three layers of cards - in hand, face up and face down - and take it in turns with other players to build up a pile of cards (building a shed, I suppose) in the middle of the table, increasing the size and value of it gradually while trying to avoid getting into a situation where you're unable to play and therefore have to be the one to pick up the pile. Certain cards, called powercards, could be played no matter what the pile's current value was and had special effects such as reducing the required value of the pile to 2 or reversing the order of play.

What's most interesting about the game is its heavily memetic nature - when I went to university the next year, it seemed that everybody I met knew the game (though never under the same name), but despite always sticking to that set of core rules, every single school group had its own unique idea of just how many powercards there were, the values to which they were assigned and the effect of each one. To be able to play it with any new group of people, we had to first agree on a cobbled-together combination of the rules that we'd brought from our own respective territories, which we would then bring back and introduce when we went back to visit home again, thus spreading individual rules gradually throughout the world. I'm trying to dance around the uncanny similarity of this to how Triple Triad worked, but that had exactly the same idea.

The Wikipedia article on it lists a variety of weird and wonderful effects and conditions, some of which I'm familiar with through picking them up from other students from across the country. But my "home" Inverurie Academy powercards were as follows:

2 - The value of the pile returns to 2
7 - Transparent card, takes the value of the first non-7 card below it
10 - Burn the shed! The cards in the pile are taken out of the game
Ace - Nominate the next player to put down a card, and play continues from them

I'm interested to know just how many variants are represented by my Friends list. What were your rules?

Comments

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

Okay, starting close to "home", here's the Alford Academy version, which was known as Shit Heads, or Pyramids:

2 - next player misses a turn
3 - transparent card
7 - next card has to be equal-or-lower, rather than the usual equal-or-higher (reverts back to normal play after someone puts down a lower card)
10 - burn card
Ace - highest card, but also the reset

There was another card that could be used to make someone else pick up all the previously played cards, and although I think it was the Jack, I wouldn't put money on it.

Speaking of gambling, were you allowed to have cards at school? They're supposed to be banned in all Aberdeenshire schools because they "encourage gambling", and the official rule at Alford was that teachers should confiscate them on sight put the owner/players on detention, but it wasn't always enforced because not many teachers want to spend their lunch break supervising detentions for pupils caught engaging in a quiet and harmless activity.

[davidn]

Interesting to see some rules I knew about on cards that I've never seen have them! I think the "lower card on 7" rule was one I brought back from St Andrews - it may have been you :)

And - what?! That's shocking. We had no rules against cards, because I like to think that I was a member of the very last part of the generation before the world turned flaming mental. However, poker was also a common room activity, first with a heap of assorted Kinder Egg prizes that had been collecting on the windowsill, and then we graduated to going down to the bank and getting £1 bags of copper coins to use those as our chips. Ingeniously the players always made sure to have the charity box on the table, so if an emergency arose and the teacher wandered in unexpectedly they could hide the cards and pretend they were just counting out its contents.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

The RGC version was again just "Shithead"

There was also the rule that if all four cards of a certain value were played on top of each other, they (and maybe everything below) was burnt. Also, you could play multiple cards of the same value.

2 - Reset to 2
3 - Most powerful card. Is instantly burned after that round of play ends - you can never pick up the three. The only way one could avoid picking up the stack after a three aws played was by playing another 3, an 8, or a 10.
8 - invisible card.
9 - next card has to be equal-or-lower, rather than the usual equal-or-higher (reverts back to normal play after someone puts down a lower card) [I'm pretty sure you couldnt play this on a 3, but otherwise at any time.]
10 - burn card

I've played a couple of variants, including with "change direction of play" and "miss a turn", and I'm sure I've missed at least one from these rules, and this may be an amalgam...


We actually stopped playing this, and moved onto Egyptian Monkeyspank" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Ratscrew), which roughly resembled a violent combination of snap and beggar-my-neighbour, with some more insane rules. The fact that a pair with another card between was treated the same as a pair made for a lot of fun.

[davidn]

We had those multiple-card and burn rules as well - I think that they're part of the base rules that aren't changed, but given the way that absolutely everything else in the game seems fluid...

10 seems so far to be consistently the burn card, and I can't remember any version that didn't have it. I see you also had the "reset to 2" rule for 2, but I think you're the first variant I've heard of to have nothing on the 7 (moving the rule that I was familiar with to the 8 and the one that I later picked up to the 9). I think that I'd seen the "change direction" rule on the 7 as well.

Slightly worryingly, remembering about this game and hearing about other people's rules is making me think that studying a memetic card game with rules originating and spreading throughout different regions would have been a great senior honours project as well...

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

I think 7 may've switched direction or missed a turn. Not 100% sure...

[kytheraen.livejournal.com]

Again, Shithead. There was a version called Danish Bastards, but it was apparently shite so no one played it.

2s reset
7s are transparent by one card (2 7s would be a 7)
10s burn (as do 4 of a kind on top of each other)
As high

Also stuff like when you're playing your table cards at the end, you're only allowed to play one of any type (say you had two kings on the table, you're only allowed to play one at once), but if you can't play a card, you are allowed to "play" the card you have and pick it up with the rest of the pack.

[davidn]

That's the closest to my own set of rules yet, with just the nomination rule for the aces missing - which shouldn't be surprising given you were from Aberdeen, but the RGC rules above seem vastly different!

Now that you mention it, I'm not sure about the rule that I said above of the 7's transparency going down to the last card that wasn't a 7... it's entirely possible that it was just the previous card. Although I have a vague memory that the only time you would be laying on a 7 would be when the pile was burned because of four sevens, and the next player would have to lay on a non-existent 7 or pick up nothing.

I'm struggling to recall our rules for the table cards, too... I think we allowed matching cards to be played at once, and I think we allowed the play/pick up to hand rule on only the blind cards.

[kytheraen.livejournal.com]

I'm not from Aberdeen, I just live here now. I went to high school in the Borders. I do miss my common room :P Did nothing but play Shithead and Spit all year.

[davidn]

In that case the rules similarity is a mystery - I had connected you firmly to Aberdeen in my head for some reason, I hadn't realized that you only moved there recently. I would have tried to get in contact again when we were visiting last week - though somehow we managed to avoid going into Aberdeen at all while we were there.

And that sounds exactly like our common room - card games and the continuing stereo war of metal versus pop. I was never much good at Spit, people could usually deal themselves to completion by the time I'd picked up my first card.

[kytheraen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that sounds like me. I was Spit Queen ;)

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

You had to lay on non-existant cards? We always had it that when a player burnt cards, she got to play the follow up with any card of his choice.

[davidn]

It does sound a bit unlikely to me as well, now I'm struggling to remember it... if it was in this case that I remember, that was the only situation where a non-existent card was kept - all other burns just cleared the pile entirely.

[starfishchris.livejournal.com]

"Shithead" down south, too. I never understood the rules as the special cards were different every single time I played it, but the name and basic principle of the game was always the same.

[kibet.livejournal.com]

Shed sounds like it was shortened shithead. We were the same as most. Our 8 was the transparent card, 2/10/ace were the same as mentioned. Burning with 4 of a kind or the ten always gave you an extra go, however you could only play the yen on lower cards. One additional rule we had was that before the game started, we could swap the house cards for the three in our hand. Also it was always red 3 to start, If no red 3 then it was black 3 or red 4 or black 4... Etc until a card could be played.

[davidn]

Card-swapping, I remember that as well now! In our version we could pick and choose, though - swap any cards in our hand for any of the face-up layer, rather than having to choose between one hand or the other.

Ten to burn seems to be pretty consistent - though yours is the first that I've heard of to place any restriction on when it can be used. And I'd never heard of determining the player to start, either - I think for us it was always the left of the dealer.

[kibet.livejournal.com]

whoops, yeah I meant pick and choose the cards. It was also a good time to cheat as people were concentrating on their own cards and you could do the flip over so that you could get a trick card on the face downs.

I also was excellent at cheat as I never bluffed but actually cheated. Once there is a pile, you put 10 cards down with say 3 queens on top, then just say 3 queens. If you are called on it, most people just turn over the top 3 cards. It was never about winning though for me, it was about seeing how much you could get away with before you were caught.

[quadralien.livejournal.com]

I know I'm a bit behind the journal, but anyway - I remember you having to come up with an alteration to the aces rule because of me.

Aces may not be used to nominate yourself.

To everyone else, I assure you, the tactic made perfect sense at the time.

[davidn]

I do remember that vaguely, but until you mentioned that I would have said that I was certain that we allowed self-nomination on Aces when we played it in school. I don't know what you might have done to warrant disallowing it outright!

I take it that you had the same rules in your own year? As the rules seem to be definitely tied to one region or school, rather than individual people, for some reason.

From Clare

[(Anonymous)]

Aaaw, this has brought back lovely memories of the 6th year common room. I was gonna say that card games SHOULD be banned, as once in game of poker you boys were playing MY SOUL was offered as bet by someone. The reason being that it was worth the most because it was purest!! Ha ha ha! Also we definitely had a rule in shed when a certain card (maybe a 4) was laid we all moved round one seat.
Clare(x)

Re: From Clare

[davidn]

I do remember the card game for your soul - I think Andrew got it in the end, which is a bit of a sorry outlook for anyone.

And we did introduce that one later, didn't we... I can't remember which card it was either, but I think it must have been Philip that introduced that from his mad Scouts rules.