This is a card game that is my family has taught to me, and I figured I would share it with you all. It's pretty fun, and best made for four people, but can most certainly be played with any number by changing things slightly.
This game is normally played with 4 people, partnered across from each other. In this game you and your partner try to develop books and gain points. For each pair of players, there is a single group of sets and books. Play starts with a "hand" that you can play, and a "foot" that you can play once you're done with your hand. Turns go around to the left and one member of each pair must meld before any other cards can be layed on the table. Once your team has the 4 required books, you ask your teamate if you can go out, and play all of your cards and discard one. This continues for 4 different hands, each time the number of points needed to meld is increased.
Wild cards are jokers and twos, they can be anything. The only other special cards are threes. Black threes aren't of any use. They count against you as below, but cannot be used to make sets. Red threes however really bad. They count against you 500 points, so you should get rid of them.
The name of the game is sets. Everything is sets. A set is defined as 3 or more cards of the same face value of any suit. (Example: 5 of hearts, 5 of clubs and 5 of spades makes a minimum set) Wild cards can replace those but you must have atleast one more face card then you do wild cards at all times. Sets with wildcards are black, and sets without wild cards are red. You should try to have a red or black card at the top of the pile(sets) to easily distinguish between red and black. You can create a new set of something you already have a book of. You can't however have two of the same sets playing on the table. A book is a set of 7 or more cards.
These points will count against you when in your hand or foot, and will count for you when on the table or in your books.
Cards Black 3 5 4-7 5 8-K 10 Ace 20 2(wild) 20 Joker(wild) 50 Red 3 500 Books Red Book 300 Black Book 100
For this game you will need 5 decks of cards. You will need 6 if you are going to play with 6 people instead of the normal four.
Be sure to shuffle the decks quite well after each hand, and especially when you are starting with 5 fresh out of the box decks. Once shuffled place two even piles in the center of the table. Determine who goes first(we leave this up to you to figure out, possible draw cards?), and that person start dealing. They pick up a stack of cards off one deck and try to pick out 22(you're not allowed to sit there and count). You deal two piles yourself, first one card to a pile and then the to the other pile, until each pile has 11. Check your count(just to make sure). The pile on the left is the foot of the person to your left and your right pile is your hand. This means that the person to your right will give you your foot(which you are NOT allowed to look at). If you pick exactly 22 cards from the deck to deal your piles, then your team gets 100 extra points.
Melding is when you have a certain number of points, to play from your hand, and you can start laying cards down. For each hand, the meld increases. The melding amounts are 50-90-120-150. One person in each team must have this number of points in valid sets and lay it down. You can use the top card in the discard pile towards your meld amount if you pick it up as required, explained below.
Play starts by drawing two cards from the decks, two from one or one from each of the two decks. Once you have drawn, you can play. If you or your partner has melded, you can play any of your cards on the sets that have been layed down. You can also lay down any new sets that you have in your hand. Once you are done then you discard one card in between the piles. You must discard, and unless you are going out, you must keep atleast one.
If there are 7 cards or more on the discard pile and you have a pair that matches the top card, then you can pick up the top seven cards and must play the top card with your pair. This is instead of the 2 cards from the piles as normal. You are not allowed to check what is in the pile first, and the discard pile should be kept neat so that you can only see the top card.
While you are playing, if you are in your hand and you play all your cards then you can pick up your foot and keep playing, if you discard your last card, you can pick up your foot, and look at it, then play it when your turn comes again.
Most of this has been covered elsewhere, but just to put it all together for completeness. Basically the steps required for going out are to have altleast 2 red books and 2 black books. First thing you want to do, once you've figured out that you can go out, is to ask your partner if you may go out. Then you want to play all of the cards in your hand, creating as many points as possible. Then discard your last card. By going out, your team recieves an extra 300 points, so its like getting an extra red book. Then each team totals up that round. First total up the books, subtracting any red threes from that(its easiest). Then take enough cards on the table off to match the points in both of your hands, and put those in the discard pile. What you have left, you count up to add to your points according to the chart above.
One modification of this game is called Cut-throught. This variation difference in strategty more than actual play. This is played when you only have three people, or possibly some other combination of an odd number. Instead of partners, each person is their own team, so there is no partnership. The main difference in strategy is that you usually want to hold your hand as long as possible till you're ready to go into your foot, and more particularly till you're ready to go out, so the other people don't know you're about to, and try to lay down as much as possible to get points before you do. The advantage of holding your hand is to try to get the person before you to throw you cards so that you can pick up the pile. More cards are sometimes a bonus in this game. :)
You will normally wait till your partner is in their foot to go out, this reason is mostly to verify that they don't have red threes in their feet. But do remember that if the other team is not in their feet, they may have red threes as well. And if your books are enough to counter the red threes and still be ahead, it might be worth it to go out catching your opponents in their feet.
When melding, you should always try to meld with only red pairs. This way you don't mess up a red pair that your partner has. So if you meld with only reds, then your player can lay down everything they have and then you can play the rest of yours. Since you need atleast 2 red books, and they're worth the most points, so you want as many as possible. And you can always turn a red book into a black book if needed.
If you have any questions about this, or need some clarification, please contact me and ask, I'll clarify it for you as well as update this page. ;)