How to Play Linger Longer

Objective

Stay in the game longer than everyone else. Every trick costs each player one card, but the winner of the trick gets one back from the stock. Win often enough and your hand stays full; lose too many and your hand empties. When you have no cards left, you are out.

Setup

Choose a dealer. Deal each player as many cards as there are players: four cards each in a four-player game, five each with five players, six each with six. Deal one at a time, and turn the dealer’s last card face up so everyone can see it. Its suit is trumps for the whole game. The dealer then picks that card up as part of their hand.

Place the undealt cards face down in the middle as the stock.

How to play

The player to the dealer’s left leads to the first trick with any card. Going left, each player plays one card. You must follow the suit that was led if you can. If you cannot, you may play a trump or throw away any other card.

The highest trump in the trick wins it. If no trumps were played, the highest card of the suit led wins. Set the trick aside face down; those cards are out of the game.

The winner of the trick, and nobody else, takes the top card of the stock and adds it to their hand. The winner then leads to the next trick.

When the stock is gone, keep playing without drawing. Hands shrink faster from here, and players start dropping out quickly.

1. 1Lead any card, or follow suit if you can
2. 2Trump or throw off when you cannot follow
3. 3The highest trump, or the highest card of the suit led, wins
4. 4Only the winner draws a card from the stock, then leads

Winning

There are no points. As soon as you run out of cards, you are out of the game and sit back to watch. Play continues among the players who still have cards. The last player left holding cards has lingered longest and wins.

If your group likes to play for something, everyone puts one chip in a pot before the deal and the winner takes it. To play a match, give one point to each game’s winner and play to an agreed number of wins.

Variations

Sift Smoke rules: some players turn up the top card of the stock to set trumps instead of showing the dealer’s card. That card is set aside and takes no part in play, so nobody starts with a known trump.

Trump lead: some tables require the first player to lead a trump if they have one. It thins out trumps early and makes the middle of the game more open.

A related game turns the idea around. In Rolling Stone, players try to get rid of their cards, and anyone who cannot follow suit has to pick up the whole trick.

Tips from the table

Count the trumps. There are thirteen, and once you know how many are gone, you can tell when your king or queen of trumps has become the boss.

Lead from a suit where you hold the ace when you can. A trick you are sure to win is a card back in your hand.

When you cannot win a trick, throw away your lowest, least useful card and keep your trumps. A trump held back for the late game, when hands are small, is often what keeps you in.

Frequently asked