Phat (card game)

Phat is a trick-taking card game for four players in two partnerships, played with a standard 52-card pack and descended from the older game of all fours. It is closely related to the game of Don and may have been derived from it during the First World War, when it was a common game among British soldiers; a 1918 book on the Black Watch calls it a common card game among the Tommies. The whole pack is dealt, thirteen cards to each player, and the first card led sets the trump suit. Trick winners peg points for scoring cards called the phat, such as the trump ace, king, queen, jack, nine and five, and extra points go to the side with the greater total of the muck, the other counting cards. There are 88 points in play on each deal and a game ends at 181 points, scored on a long pegboard resembling a cribbage board. Phat is still played in parts of England, including Herefordshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, and around Motherwell and Wishaw in Scotland.