Tripoley Instructions

Tripoley is a combination card/board game that combines three card games into one. It combines the games of Hearts, Poker and Michigan, using playing chips for stakes in the game and a game board that the chips are played on, determining who wins what chips at which point of the game.

Before dealing the cards, all the players place one chip each onto every section of the board; every player places nine chips total. Four spaces represent the heart cards 10 through Ace, one is labeled for the king and queen of hearts, two more are "8-9-10-One Suit" and "Kitty," and all those encircle the "Pot" space. Everyone places a chip on all these spaces before every deal, even if chips remain on any one of them. The dealer deals all the cards, giving one hand to each player plus a spare hand. As the dealer, you can swap your hand for the spare hand or auction it for chips to the highest bidder. No one can look at the spare hand first; once you see it, it becomes your hand and the old hand is discarded. If you have no good cards for the opening hearts round or to assemble a good poker hand, it may be a good idea to exchange.

The first round in the game is the hearts round. You collect the chips in the 10, Jack, Queen, King or Ace of hearts space if you have any of those cards. If you have the King and Queen, you get the chips for both those space plus the "King-Queen" space. Anyone with an 8, 9 and 10 of the same suit gets the chips in that space; if multiple players have that sequence, they split the chips. In the second stage, you'll take five of your cards to form a poker hand; make sure you assemble the best hand possible. The dealer starts a single round of betting where chips are placed in the "Pot" space. Depending on your hand, you'll need to determine if you want to "see" the current bet, raise it or "fold." The one with the best hand gets all the "Pot" chips. The final round is Michigan. The dealer plays the lowest card in his hand. If you have the next highest card of that suit, play it. This continues until no one can play a card of that suit, then whoever played the last card starts the next play. Whoever runs out of cards first gets all the "Kitty" chips plus one chip from the other players for each card they still have. A new dealer (usually to the left of the last one) then deals a new hand for a new game. The games usually continue until someone wins all the chips. If there are still chips on the board when you decide to stop playing, you can play a single poker hand can award for those chips.