Three players, one secret contract each hand — land exactly on it and the bonus is yours
Speed Run is a compendium trick-taking game for exactly three players in which everyone is the declarer, every hand. Each player holds a hand of contract cards — win exactly four tricks, win the fewest, pass, redo an old one — and every hand all three secretly play one of them face down. Twelve tricks are played, the contracts are turned over, and each player scores the distance between the tricks they took and the tricks they promised. Hitting it exactly is worth minus two. Lowest total wins.
A deck of 40 cards in four suits — Earthworms, Raccoons, Geckos and Gorillas — each running from 1 to 10, and a hand of contract cards for each player. Three players. A game is six, nine or twelve hands (Short, Medium or Long), about 20 to 45 minutes.
Each length adds contract cards. Short gives every player Win 0, Win 1, Win 4, Win 5, Middle, one Pass and one Redo; Medium adds Win 7, Most and a second Pass; Long adds Win 9, Fewest and a second Redo. Every player always holds one card more than there are hands.
The player with the first player card shuffles and deals twelve cards each; the four left over stay face down and out of the hand. The first player then looks at their cards and makes one of two choices: either the trump suit (one of the four, or no trump) or the card ranking. The next player clockwise makes the other choice. The third player, who chose nothing, leads the first trick.
The ranking is one of four: 10 high (the obvious order), 1 high (reversed: the 1 beats the 2 beats the 3), Slalom (the direction switches after every trick) or Bell Curve (it switches every four tricks: tricks one to four one way, five to eight the other, nine to twelve the first way again). Whoever picks Slalom or Bell Curve also says which direction it starts in. Trump beats every other suit whichever way the cards rank.
Once trump and ranking are set, every player chooses one contract card and plays it face down. Nobody sees anyone else’s until the hand is scored. A contract you have already completed is gone from your hand, so it can never be bid again.
The winner of a trick leads the next. You must follow the led suit if you can, but you need not beat what is on the table; a player with none of the led suit may play anything. The highest trump wins the trick if any was played, otherwise the highest card of the led suit — always under the direction in force for that trick. Keep each won trick as its own pile: everyone’s count matters.
After the twelfth trick the contracts are turned over. For a Win N contract your score is the difference between your tricks and N — Win 4 with six tricks scores 2, with three tricks 1. For Fewest, Middle or Most it is the difference between your tricks and the fewest, middle or most count of the three; if you hold that place (ties included) the difference is zero.
A difference of zero scores −2 — the Perfect Bonus. Every score is written on the scorecard; Pass writes nothing. A Redo re-scores the contract and the sheet keeps the lower of the old and the new result.
After the last hand the totals are added up and the lowest total wins. A tie goes to whoever completed more normal contracts (Pass and Redo do not count), then to whoever has more Perfect Bonuses, and then the win is shared. The game also ends early the moment all three players have nothing but Pass cards left.
Once all three contracts are down, any player may turn theirs face up. A revealed contract scores double either way: a Perfect Bonus becomes −4, a miss by three becomes 6. Pass cannot be revealed. A revealed Redo is compared on its doubled score.
Exactly three. Twelve cards each from the 40, and Fewest, Middle and Most compare three results.
Everyone. Each player bids a contract face down every hand and is scored on it; there is no auction and no defenders.
Card rankings that change during the hand. Slalom switches between 10 high and 1 high after every trick; Bell Curve switches every four tricks. The player who picks one also picks which direction the hand starts in.
Landing exactly on your contract — a difference of zero — scores −2 instead of 0. Since the lowest total wins, it is the best result a contract can give.
It lets you attempt a contract you already completed a second time. The scorecard keeps the better result. Everyone sees that you played a Redo, but not which contract it is.
Yes. It runs in your browser with no download, no signup and no payment, against two computer opponents or online with friends.