Heptathlon Card Game Rules

Heptathlon packs seven small games into one. You play seven rounds in a row, and the rules change with every round. Some rounds are about dodging tricks and certain cards, others about grabbing as many tricks as you can, and one round is a solitaire of its own. It works for 3–5 players and is best with 4. Set aside 45 to 65 minutes.

You need a standard 52-card deck without jokers and something to keep score with. The goal is to have the fewest points once all seven rounds are done.

Heptathlon is the longest in the family with Pentathlon (five rounds) and Hexathlon (six rounds). The three games are close relatives, and Heptathlon stacks two more rounds on top.

A standard 52-card deck, no jokers. Every card is dealt out in every round. In the trick rounds all players need the same number of cards, so remove one or two red twos if the deck doesn't divide evenly.

• 3 players: remove one red two (51 cards ÷ 3 = 17 cards each)
• 4 players: use the whole deck (52 cards ÷ 4 = 13 cards each)
• 5 players: remove two red twos (50 cards ÷ 5 = 10 cards each)

For the Fan Tan round, put the red twos back and use the full deck. There it doesn't matter if someone gets one card more than the others.

Keep a pen and paper handy, since the points from every round are added together at the end.

Card values are the same in every round except Fan Tan:

• Every round but round 3: ace is highest, then king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2
• Round 3 (Fan Tan): king is highest and ace is lowest

The ace swaps places in Fan Tan, so remind each other before that round.

The first round is played for tricks in the usual way, and the point is to take as few as possible.

The player to the left of the dealer leads the first card. Everyone else must follow suit if they can. If you can't follow suit, you may throw off any card, but then you can't win the trick. The highest card of the led suit takes the trick, and whoever wins it leads to the next one.

Scoring: each trick you take is worth 1 point.

The second round plays like the first, but now only clubs count. You'd rather not collect ♣️ in your tricks.

• Same trick rules as round 1
• Shed clubs when someone leads a different suit
• If you have to take a trick, take one with no clubs in it

Scoring: each ♣️ in your tricks is worth 1 point.

The third round is completely different. Here you play a round of Fan Tan, where the goal is to get rid of the cards in your hand.

• The player holding ♥️7 starts by laying it down
• On your turn you can extend a suit with the card just above or below the end of its row, start a new suit by playing another seven, or pass
• Rows build both ways from the seven: ...5, 6, 7, 8, 9...
• Remember that the ace is lowest in this round

Scoring:

• Each pass is worth 1 point
• Each card left in your hand when someone runs out is worth 1 point
• The first player to get rid of every card scores 0

In the fourth round you're back to tricks, and now you steer clear of the four queens.

• Same trick rules as round 1
• Stay alert when high cards are led, because that's when a queen can drop
• Try to unload your own queens onto tricks that others win

Scoring: each queen is worth 4 points, so 16 points are in play in the round.

Now everything flips. In the fifth round you want to take as many tricks as you can, and it's played without trumps.

• Same trick rules as the earlier trick rounds
• Use your high cards to pull in tricks
• Hold your aces until you need them

Scoring: each trick is worth -1 point.

The sixth round is like Grand, but now ♠️ is trump. You still want to take as many tricks as possible.

Trumps work as they do in Amerikaner. You must follow the led suit if you can. If you can't, you may either throw off a card or play a spade. When a trick contains spades, the highest spade wins it. If nobody played a spade, the highest card of the led suit wins.

Scoring: each trick is worth -1 point.

In the last round you play for tricks in the usual way, and now you avoid clubs and queens at the same time. One queen is extra expensive.

• The queen of clubs is worth 8 points
• The other three queens are worth 4 points each
• Every other ♣️ is worth 1 point

A single trick can swing the score a lot here, so be careful about taking one where the queen of clubs might be hiding.

Write down the points after each round:

• Round 1: number of tricks × 1 point
• Round 2: number of ♣️ × 1 point
• Round 3: number of passes + cards left in hand
• Round 4: number of queens × 4 points
• Round 5: number of tricks × -1 point
• Round 6: number of tricks × -1 point
• Round 7: queen of clubs 8, other queens 4 each, other ♣️ 1 each

Add it all up at the end. The player with the lowest total wins.

A few things worth keeping in mind across the seven rounds:

• General: keep some track of which cards have been played, it helps in almost every round
• Rounds 1, 2, and 4: get rid of high cards early when you can
• Round 3: sevens let you open more suits and empty your hand faster
• Rounds 5 and 6: now high cards are gold, so hang on to your aces
• Round 6: a long run of spades is strong, since spades are trump
• Round 7: watch the queen of clubs closely, those 8 points can decide the whole game

Heptathlon is a Norwegian game, also called Sjukamp, and as with Pentathlon and Hexathlon both the order of the rounds and which rounds are included vary from place to place.

• Different trump: some use another fixed suit as trump in round 6, or draw a card to decide it
• Simpler finale: some let the queen of clubs score 4 points like the other queens instead of 8
• Fewer rounds: for a shorter evening, play Pentathlon or Hexathlon instead

These rules describe the Norwegian Heptathlon with seven rounds: Pass, Clubs, Fan Tan, Queens, Grand, Trumps with ♠️, and a Finale where the queen of clubs scores 8 points. The lowest total score wins. The game is related to Pentathlon and Hexathlon, and both the choice of rounds and their order vary from family to family.