Rams (card game)

Rams is a European trick-taking card game for up to nine players, with five or seven making the best table. Each player is dealt five cards from a 32-card pack and a trump card is turned up. In turn, each player either plays on, promising to win at least one trick, or folds without penalty, and the first player to bid may instead swap the hand for a face-down extra hand called the widow. Players hold counters and shed one for each trick won, while a player who stays in and wins nothing takes five more, so the last player left holding counters loses. The game is related to Nap and Loo and was played as a widespread gambling and drinking game. Its rules were first published in France around 1820, and it spread through Germany, Austria and Sweden and reached the United States as Rounce.