A climbing card game for two or three players
Haggis is a climbing card game designed by Sean Ross for two or three players. It belongs to the same family as Tichu, Big Two and Zheng Shangyou: players take turns laying down progressively stronger combinations, and whoever runs out of cards first is rewarded. What sets Haggis apart is that every player holds three personal wild cards in plain sight, and that you can bet on yourself before a single card is played.
A match runs over a fixed number of rounds, and the first player to 250 points wins. Points come from three places: the point cards you capture during the round, a bonus for emptying your hand before your opponents, and any bet you declared and then made good on.
Haggis does not use a standard deck. With three players it is 45 cards: the ranks 2 to 10 in five suits. With two players one suit is removed, leaving 36 cards.
On top of that, each player owns a Jack, a Queen and a King in a suit of their own. These are not dealt from the deck — you simply have them, face up, from the first turn to the last. They are the game's wild cards.
Every player is dealt 14 cards. Whatever is left over is set aside face down and called the haggis — three cards in the three-player game, eight in the two-player game. It goes to whoever empties their hand first, which makes going out early worth more than it first appears.
Your Jack, Queen and King can each stand in for any suit card, letting you complete a set or fill a gap in a sequence you could not otherwise play. That flexibility is the heart of the game — and its central tension, because those same three cards are the most valuable point cards in the deck. Spending a King to win a trick is often correct. It is also handing five points to whoever eventually captures it.
The lead player puts down any legal combination. Each player in turn must then either play a stronger combination of the same shape and size, or pass. When everyone passes, the last player to have played captures the pile and leads again.
A bomb can be played on anything, at any time, regardless of the shape or size on the table. Only a higher bomb beats a bomb.
| Rank | Bomb | Cards |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (lowest) | Rainbow 3-5-7-9 | 3, 5, 7, 9 in four different suits |
| 2 | Jack + Queen | any two |
| 3 | Jack + King | any two |
| 4 | Queen + King | any two |
| 5 | Jack + Queen + King | all three wilds |
| 6 (highest) | Flush 3-5-7-9 | 3, 5, 7, 9 all in the same suit |
Note what this means: the four odd low cards most players would shed without a thought are the two strongest bombs in the game if you keep them together.
Before play begins, each player may declare a bet that they will be first to empty their hand — 5, 15 or 30 points — or decline entirely.
Make it and you add the bet to your score. Miss it and you pay it twice over: in full to whoever did go out first, and in full to every opponent who declined to bet at all. A failed 30 can hand out 60 points. This is why declining is a perfectly respectable move rather than a timid one.
The first player to empty their hand takes the haggis and, in the three-player game, the remaining player's entire hand as captured cards. They also score 5 points for every card still held by the opponent with the most cards at that moment.
| Card | Points |
|---|---|
| 3, 5, 7, 9 | 1 each |
| Jack | 2 |
| Queen | 3 |
| King | 5 |
The 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are worth nothing at all. They still win tricks; they just never score.
Two-player Haggis is not a cut-down version, it is its own game. One suit and one set of face cards leave the deck, and the haggis grows from three cards to eight — a much larger unknown and a much larger prize for going out first. With only one opponent there is no third player to absorb a failed bet, which changes betting considerably.
Haggis is designed for two or three players. The three-player game uses a 45-card deck of five suits; the two-player game removes one suit, leaving 36 cards. Both are official versions, not variants of each other.
Each player receives their own Jack, Queen and King at the start, kept face-up in front of them. These three are wild and can stand in for any suit card. They are also point cards worth 2, 3 and 5 if an opponent captures them.
A bomb beats any ordinary play regardless of size. There are six, from lowest to highest: 3-5-7-9 in four different suits, Jack+Queen, Jack+King, Queen+King, Jack+Queen+King, and 3-5-7-9 all in one suit. Only a higher bomb beats a bomb.
The first player to reach 250 points across multiple rounds wins. Points come from captured point cards, a bonus for emptying your hand first, and successful bets.