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 and Tatties is the published three-player variant, and it turns the game into a shifting two-against-one. The deck, the deal and the card play are exactly the three-player game's; what changes is everything that happens before the first card and the way the round pays out.
Instead of each player quietly declaring a bet, there is an auction. Starting to the left of the lead player, each seat may bid 15, 30 or 45, raise, or drop out for good. The winner becomes the Shepherd, claiming to be first out; the other two are the Sheep, working together to stop them. The teams are new every round, which is why it is called a variable partnership.
One rule in that auction does most of the work. You may only match a standing bid if your overall score is lower than the bidder's — level or ahead on points and you must raise or pass. The player in front has to keep paying more for the privilege, and the player behind can take the chair cheaply.
The Shepherd then swaps cards with the haggis, and the size runs backwards: a bid of 15 swaps all three cards, 30 swaps two, 45 only one. Bid low and you get the most help; bid high and you are nearly on your own. A Jack, Queen or King can never be put back. If nobody bids at all there is no Shepherd, no exchange and no bet to score.
Two more things change. A trick won with a bomb is kept by the winner — there is no handing the cards to an opponent. And every captured card is worth one point, whatever its rank, so the pip table above does not apply.
The payout is the point of the whole thing. A Shepherd who goes out first banks the full bet. A Shepherd who fails scores nothing — instead the Sheep split it, two thirds to whichever of them went out first and one third to the other. So the Sheep are allies with a reason to race each other.
Haggis and Neeps is the published four-player variant, and where Tatties shuffles its alliances every round, Neeps fixes them. You pick a partner at the start and keep them for the whole game, sitting diagonally across the table so that each of you has one opponent on either side. Every point either of you scores goes into the same pile.
The deck changes shape. Four suits are used instead of five, but two copies of every card from 2 to 10 — 72 suit cards, plus the usual Jack, Queen and King for each player. That divides exactly four ways, which is why this is the one version of Haggis with no haggis: nothing is set aside, and everyone holds 21 cards.
Before the first trick you each pass your partner one card, face down, twice. Court cards may not be passed, and on the second pass you may send back the card they just gave you. Nobody sees anything until all four cards are in. Partnerships are encouraged to invent their own meaning for what they pass — a low card to say you are going for it, a 3, 5, 7 or 9 to build a bomb — and they never have to explain it to their opponents.
Betting keeps the base game's 5, 15 and 30, with one change: only one of you may hold the team's bet. If your partner has bet and you have not yet played a card, you can take it over — but only with a larger one, never an equal. A bet you make pays your team double; one you miss pays the amount straight to the other team.
In play, three things move. A bombed trick is captured by the opposing team either way, so what the bomber chooses is not who gets the cards but who leads next — themself or their partner, and that gift cannot be discussed or refused. When you go out you record the biggest hand among your opponents, never your partner's. And every captured card is worth one point, as in Tatties.
The round normally ends when the third player goes out. But if you and your partner are the first two out, that is a Slam: the round stops there, the second of you scores the same as the first, and your team sweeps both opponents' remaining cards. It is the swing the whole variant is built around.
The base game 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. Two published variants extend the count: Haggis and Tatties for three, and Haggis and Neeps for four.
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.
Haggis and Tatties is the published three-player variant. An auction before the first trick decides who becomes the Shepherd, claiming to go out first for 15, 30 or 45 points; the other two players become the Sheep and oppose them. The Shepherd swaps cards with the haggis — three cards for a bid of 15, only one for 45 — and leads the first trick. The teams are redrawn every round.
Every captured card is worth exactly one point, whatever its rank, so the usual pip values for 3-5-7-9 and the court cards do not apply. A Shepherd who goes out first wins the whole bet; one who fails scores nothing and the two Sheep split it instead, two thirds to whichever of them went out first and one third to the other.
Haggis and Neeps is the published four-player variant, played in fixed partnerships with partners sitting diagonally across the table. It uses 72 suit cards — two copies of 2 to 10 in four suits — dealt out completely, so there is no haggis and every player holds 21 cards. Before the first trick each player passes their partner two cards, one at a time and face down.
A Slam is when both players on one team go out before either opponent does. The round ends immediately, the second player to go out scores the same as their partner did instead of measuring again, and the first player captures all the cards left in both opponents’ hands. Normally the round would run until the third player went out.
The rungs are the base game’s 5, 15 and 30, but only one player per team may hold an active bet. If your partner has bet and you have not yet played a card, you may overwrite it with a larger bet of your own — never an equal one. A successful bet pays your team double the amount; an unsuccessful one pays the amount to the opposing team.