Rickety Kate is a trick taking card game. This means every player tosses in a card and the player with the highest card in the same suite as the first card wins the trick and the cards. But wait! the person with the lowest running score wins. So winning a trick is not necessarily good.
The Queen of Spades (Rickety Kate) is worth 10 points against you and the other spades are worth 1 point against you. When you run out of cards you are dealt another hand.
If you obtain all the spades in a hand it is called Shooting the Moon and your score drops to zero. At the beginning of each hand the player pass their three worst cards to their neighbour. Aces and King are the worst cards.
The game has many options and settings
Depending on the options the deck of cards can be anywhere from 30 cards in 3 suites to 184 cards in 10 suites
The following options are available
1. Number Of Suites in Deck (3 - 8)
2. Number Of Cards in Suite (10-20)
3. Number Of Players At Table (3 - 7)
(The empty seats will be filled with robot players)
4. Number Of Human Players At Table (1 - 7)
(Multiple players can play in pass the phone / pad mode)
5. Include Jokers in Deck (Yes-No)
6. Include Tarot Trumps in Deck (Yes-No)
7. Use Pass Three Worst Cards Rule (Yes-No)
8. Game Finishing Score (50 - 500)
9. Speed of Card Animations (Slow - Fast)
10. What are the Scoring Cards (Spades, Hearts or Jacks)
11. Include Hooligan ( Seven of Clubs ) Worth 7 points (Yes - No)
12. Include Omnibus ( Jack of Diamonds ) Worth Negative 10 points (Yes - No)
13. Follow Can not lead with Scoring Card Suite Until Someone Plays a Scoring Card Rule (Yes-No)
14. Play Music (Yes-No)
15. Music Volume (Low - High)
16. Play Sound (Yes-No)
17. Music Volume (Low - High)
Other names for this game are Black Lady, The Dirty, Dark Lady, Slippery Anne, Chase the Lady, Crubs, Black Queen, Black Maria, Hearts, Spades, Four Jacks and Hooligan Hearts