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I was introduced to Clag while serving in the RAF in the late 50s. We didn't use a board of any sort. It was just a popular fun game for between 3 and 7 people. A trick-taking card game using one standard 52 card pack without jokers. Rules of Whist applied i.e. always follow suit, if you can't, either trump or discard. Aces high.
The game starts by appointing a player or onlooker to keep score, then cutting for deal.
The dealer deals one card face down to each player and himself then cuts for trumps.
The players, starting from the dealers left, look at their card and state by calling “one”if they think they can win the trick , if not they call “none”. The dealer is always forced to unbalance the call. i.e. if only one other player has called “one” then the dealer also has to call “one”, where all of the other players call “none” then the dealer must also call “none” even if he held the ace of trumps!
The game then proceeds by the deal passing to the left, dealing two cards to each player and cutting for trumps. Once again the dealer must unbalance the call.
The game continues in the same way up to a maximum of 13 cards (in the case of 4 players) with no-trumps for the 13th hand.
Scoring: Each player gets 1 point for every trick he makes plus 5 points for a correct call for each hand.
Highest score wins – betting optional!
A variant of the game which I play with family and friends is to come back down the sequence all the way back to one card but using the same calls as we made on the way up – this can make for some sneaky play!