The Shooting Party: Rules of Play

About

The Shooting Party is a solitaire card game to pass the time between pheasant drives. It plays in approximately 10 minutes.

Aim

To contrive to be alone with each of 4 young ladies in turn, by removing all other cards from your hand on 4 separate occasions. Your secondary aim is for each of them to be wearing their jewels at the time so that you may pilfer them.

The Guests

	The queens represent the 4 young ladies that you aim to seduce.
	The aces represent their jewels (♥️ blood ruby, ♣️ black pearls, ♦️ diamond tiara, ♠️ emerald brooch).
	The kings are their husbands.
	The jacks are the husbands' private secretaries.
	The remaining cards (ranks 2 to 5) represent other, less attractive guests.
	The joker is the butler.

Gameplay

1. 4 cards are drawn to form your hand. This represents the guests currently occupying the same room as you.
   • Cards are discarded from your hand according to the rules of etiquette. Discarding represents people leaving the room in response to your clever quip or verbal manipulation.
   • You may leave the room at any time by discarding your entire hand and drawing a new hand of 4 cards.
2. Whenever you have 5 or fewer cards in your hand you may draw 2 more. This represents a pair of guests entering the room.
3. Aces drawn during the round are set aside for display. The displayed aces indicate which ladies are wearing their jewels at the time. At the end of the round any jewels not stolen are shuffled back into the deck.
4. If you succeed in reducing your hand to a single queen you can seduce her and her card will be set aside. She will retire to her room with a headache for the rest of the weekend and will not appear again in the game.
   • If the ace of the same suit as the queen is currently displayed you successfully pocketed her jewels during the seduction. The ace will be added to your final score.
   • A new hand of 4 cards will be drawn.

Etiquette

The rules of etiquette must be observed at all times. If, on occasion, more than one might apply, then they should be obeyed in the following order of precedence.

1. Groups of more than 7 are not conducive to agreeable discourse.

   You may draw a pair of cards only if you have 5 or fewer cards in your hand. Both cards must be drawn before resolving their effects.

2. Husbands should guard their young wives from unseemly temptations by removing them from the company of attractive young men.

   Constant vigilance is required; husbands should not allow themselves to be distracted by business. If you hold a queen and king of the same suit you must immediately discard them both, unless you also hold the jack of that suit, in which case you may discard the king and jack instead.

3. Ladies appear to best advantage when admirers are not distracted by the presence of other ladies.

   You may never hold more than one queen in your hand; the one that has been there the longest must be discarded immediately. If you draw 2 together then the one that was topmost in the draw pile must be discarded.

4. Private secretaries are generally over-inquisitive young men whose prying may uncover truths which you would prefer to remain hidden.

   If you ever hold 2 or more jacks you must immediately discard your whole hand (i.e. leave the room) and draw another 4 cards.

5. Gentlemen and ladies are most comfortable conversing with others of similar social standing on topics of mutual interest.

   You may discard exactly 2 cards of the same suit, for example:

   2♥️ + 3♥️

   J♦️ + 4️♦️

   K♣️ + 5♣️

   Or 2 or more cards of the same rank, for example:

   4♣️ + 4♠️

   K♦️ + K♠️

   2♥️ + 2♠️ + 2♣️

6. A sympathetic butler can be a powerful ally; often a juicy tipoff for the local greyhound races will prove sufficient to secure his loyalty.

   The joker may be discarded to retrieve 1 card from the discard pile or 1 ace from the draw pile. Alternatively the joker may simply be discarded on its own, without needing to be paired with another card.

Game end

The game ends when the draw pile is exhausted for the 3rd time, or all of the queens are in the score pile. The number of scored cards indicates your social status, from impecunious boor to filthy scoundrel: