TIL about “Red”, a variation of Golf/Cabo. I can’t find references to it online, so I gather it’s a mismash of house rules.
Goal: have the least points at the end of the game
Setup:
- Deal 4 cards face down to each player, placed in a square grid
- Look at the lower 2 cards
Gameplay:
- Each player takes a card from the draw pile, looks at it, and may choose to swap it with any of their cards
- Upon discard, any player may discard a card of the same value. Only the first player discards. Other players keep their cards
- If the player misremembered their card value, they draw two new cards face down
Special cards:
7-9 cards have special effects, but only if you draw and discard one on the same turn. (e.g. discarding an 8 from your face down cards doesn’t count).
- For a 7, you may look at one of your face down cards
- For an 8, you may execute a “blind swap” where you trade one of your cards for an opponents without looking at them
- For a 9, you may execute an “open swap” where you pick one of your cards and one from an opponent, and look at them to decide if you want to make the swap
Triggering the end game:
Any player may trigger the endgame by calling “Red” on their turn (they do not get to draw/discard this turn). After this, every other player plays one turn, and then all players reveal their cards and score.
Scoring:
All cards are worth their regular value (A-K = 1-10). The only special value cards are red kinds, which are worth negative 2