Wizard

Wizard uses a sixty-card deck that consists of the traditional 52-card deck (1-13 in four suits) plus four Wizards (top) and four Jesters (bottom). Players compete in several rounds, depending on the number of players, and the player who finishes with the highest score wins. In each round, players are dealt a hand of cards - one card in the first round, two cards in the second, three in the third, etc. - and then the trump is determined by turning over the cards. - If a suit is revealed, that suit is trump, while if the revealed card is a jester, it is turned over and there is no trump for that round. If the turned over card is a Wizard, the dealer chooses one of the 4 suits as the trump suit. The dealer cannot choose "no trump". In the last round of each game, all cards are dealt so that there is no trump. The players then indicate how many tricks they hope to win in that round.

The play and winning of tricks follows the usual rules for taking tricks. If a player leads a matching card, all other players must follow, if possible. If a player leads a Jester, the second player determines the colour of the led card. If a player leads a Wizard, then those who follow can play whatever they want. However, in any case, a player can always play a Wizard or a Jester, even if they have cards of the chosen suit. After each player has played a card, determine the winner of the trick as follows: If one or more Wizards have been played, the player of the first Wizard wins the trick, collects the cards and leads to the next trick. Otherwise, the player who played the highest trump wins the trick. Otherwise, the player who played the highest card of the led suit wins the trick. If all players have played jesters, the one who played the first jester wins.

Once all tricks have been played, the players keep track of their score for the round. If a player has matched his bid, winning exactly the number of tricks indicated at the beginning of the round, he scores 20 points, plus 10 points for each trick taken. If a player missed his bid, he loses 10 points for each trick missed, whether he won more or fewer tricks than expected. A common variation of the Wizard is to not allow the total number of tricks bid in a round to match the number of rounds, thus forcing (at least) one player to be out of the game each round.

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