Ristikontra

Ristikontra is a Finnish card game for four players that was popular in lumber camps. The Pagat rules page considers it likely to be the original game of the unusual sedma group, in which a trick is won not by the highest card but by the last card of the same rank as the one led, a style found in a band of regions from Lapland to Hungary. A standard 52 card pack is used, suits do not matter and the cards have no ranking order. Four players sit in fixed partnerships, each is dealt six cards, and the rest form a stock from which hands are refilled after every trick; a player may also play the top card of the stock unseen, called playing in the dark. Aces, tens, kings, queens and jacks carry the points, 120 in all, and a side needs 61 to win, or scores double for taking 120. A player may not lead the same rank to four tricks in a row. In the northern version known as Ristiklappi or Lappi, five cards are dealt and a team that has taken a queen must later clean by winning a trick that holds a king and is not taken by a queen.