NEVER OVER is a numerical playing card game, for at least two people, that employs a special pack consisting of green and red cards.
Below are the green cards of a typical NEVER OVER pack; the plus sign stands for ordinary arithmetical addition. The small index allows cards to be held closely together in the hand; the large index permits easy reading of a card from a distance. The diagonal line printed in a contrasting color is optional, but it seems to aid readability.
Next are the red cards; the sign for less-than-or-equal-to similarly carries its conventional arithmetical meaning. Note that the zero must be red, not green.
The number on a card, be it green or red, is termed its pointage.
Although the colors on the cards are helpful, the symbols will still be distinct to a person who has difficulty discriminating hues.
Players lacking the special pack can improvise an adequate collection of cards from several standard packs, perhaps using diamonds for the red cards and all other suits for the green.
Here is a suggestion for how many cards might be in a pack:
Card | Quantity | Card | Quantity |
---|---|---|---|
+ 4 | 7 | ≤ 4 | 5 |
+ 3 | 9 | ≤ 3 | 4 |
+ 2 | 11 | ≤ 2 | 3 |
+ 1 | 13 | ≤ 1 | 2 |
≤ 0 | 1 | ||
Total | 40 | Total | 15 |
This total of 55 cards should be feasible for manufacturers of ordinary playing cards to produce, because the typical 52-card pack is customarily supplemented with two jokers and two advertising cards, making a total of 56 pieces. If a NEVER OVER pack of some other constitution is preferred, the highest green card should bear the same pointage as the highest red card.
Changing the pack affects the nature of competition. To increase the offensive aspect of the game:
To increase the defensive aspect, do the opposite.
In terms of physical properties, the cards can be of any size or shape desired, but a reasonable choice is a rectangle 62 × 88 millimeters (ISO size B8), which is practically the same as American poker size (2.5 × 3.5 inches). Rounding the corners reduces the chances of irregular fraying which could make some cards identifiable from the back. Of course, a computer version could be devised instead.
The next figure gives an overhead view of a table where six people are engaged in NEVER OVER. Each participant has (or will have) a green pile and a red pile; a pile currently empty is drawn with a dotted line. Not shown are the cards players hold in their hands. At the center of the table are a stack of face-down cards (the stock) and a partially overlapping stack of face-up cards (the discards). Some variations of the game might leave the discards squared up, so that only the top card is visible, while other variations might entail no discards at all, or perhaps no stock.
Players take turns clockwise around the table. In your turn, you can:
When you move a red card to a red pile, any card previously in that pile no longer has any effect.
You never:
For a full example, here are the moves that the six players at the table above could make if they hold the necessary cards in their hands. The letter r indicates moves that are redundant:
Abe | Bea | Cal | Deb | Eli | Flo | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Piles | + 3 | none | + 2 | ≤ 3 | + 4 | ≤ 1 | + 2 | ≤ 2 | none | ≤ 4 | + 3 | ≤ 0 |
This player can add | + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 | ≤ 4 r | + 1 + 2 + 3 | ≤ 3 r ≤ 4 | + 1 | ≤ 1 r ≤ 2 ≤ 3 ≤ 4 | + 1 + 2 | ≤ 2 r ≤ 3 ≤ 4 | + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 | ≤ 4 r | | ≤ 0 r ≤ 1 ≤ 2 ≤ 3 ≤ 4 |
Other players can add | ≤ 0 ≤ 1 ≤ 2 ≤ 3 ≤ 4 r | ≤ 0 ≤ 1 ≤ 2 ≤ 3 r | ≤ 0 ≤ 1 r | ≤ 0 ≤ 1 ≤ 2 r | ≤ 0 ≤ 1 ≤ 2 ≤ 3 ≤ 4 r | ≤ 0 r |
If you place a red card on top of an equal red card — within your own red pile or an opponent's — it does not change which green cards can be subsequently played by the red pile's owner. Such a redundant play might occasionally be useful to dispose of an unwanted card. The same applies to putting a ≤ 4 on an empty red pile.
Note that Cal's + 4 must have been played prior to his ≤ 1; similarly for Flo. The principle is that once you legally play a green card, your opponent cannot impeach it by subsequently placing a red card of lower pointage on your red pile.
At the beginning of the game, all the green and red piles are empty, each red pile implicitly containing a ≤ 4 (or whatever the highest pointage in the pack is).
With some fundamentals established, here is how to play a whole game. Select some player as dealer. The player at dealer's left is called sinistra, at dealer's right is destra. Dealer shuffles the pack, and destra cuts. The dealer then distributes cards clockwise, one at a time, face down, beginning with sinistra, until each player has 8 cards. (When only two play, the destra and sinistra are the same.) Undealt cards are placed face down in the middle of the table to form the stock.
The discards, as they accumulate, are kept spread so that players can see all the cards, and see in what sequence they were added.
Players take turns, going clockwise around the table; player at dealer's left going first. In your turn, you:
The retirement option exists because sometimes late in the game it becomes obvious that, with the few cards remaining, no further meaningful play is possible. Players retire individually because they may disagree as to when that point is reached. You may also choose to retire even when substantive action remains, if you believe that your continued participation will benefit your opponents more than yourself. You inevitably retire when you run out of cards in your hand. When you retire, you place any remaining cards of your hand face down on the table.
The game ends when all players have retired. Note that if all but one player are retired, that active player may play alone, continuing to try to accumulate green cards. Once all players are retired, each adds the pointages on his green cards, and that is his score. Red cards do not figure into the count. Ties are possible.
In a series of games, the turn to deal passes from one player to the next clockwise. It is best if the number of games in a session is a multiple of the number of players.
Players might agree to adopt some of these options:
These are some options for partnership play:
If partnerships are fixed throughout a session, then the score for a partnership is simply the total pointage of the cards in its green pile(s). If instead partnerships can change from one game to the next, each player of a partnership scores its total green pointage within each hand.
As an example of rotating partnerships, five players may agree to a five-game session of NEVER OVER, each player dealing once. Within each game, sinistra and destra are partners against the other three. Because the deal rotates, each player has one partner in two games, and two partners in three games, and everything balances out. They could go on to play five additional hands where sinistra, dealer and destra are partners against the other two.
Irregularities: