Mau-Mau (card game)

This article is about the card game. For the Kenyan anti-colonial rebellion, see Mau Mau Uprising.

Mau Mau is a card game for 2 - 5 players that is popular in Germany, Brazil and some other areas. Whoever gets rid of his cards first wins the game. Mau Mau is very similar to the game UNO, both belonging to the larger Crazy Eights or Shedding family of card games. However Mau Mau is played with a regular deck of playing cards.

The rules

The game is played with a regular deck of playing cards. In Germany, most decks contain neither card values below 7 nor Jokers (as they are made for the national game of Skat), however Mau Mau is playable with any deck.

The players are dealt each a hand of cards (usually 5). The rest is placed face down as drawing stack. At the beginning of the game the topmost card is revealed, then the players each get a turn to play cards.

You can play a card if it corresponds to the suit or value of the open card. E.g. on a 10 of spades, only other spades can be played or other 10s. If a player is not able to, he draws one card from the stack. If he can play this card, he may do so, otherwise he keeps the drawn card and passes his turn.

If the drawing stack is empty, the playing stack (except for the topmost card) is shuffled and turned over to serve as new drawing stack.

Special card values

Some cards are special, because they affect the game directly -- a lot of variations exist in this matter:

If a 10 is played, the player must say "Have a nice day."
If an ace is played, the play reverses directions.
If a Queen is played the player must say "All hail Mau!"

Some optional rules:

If the Queen of Hearts is played, the player must say "She made those tarts!"
If the Jack of Hearts is played, the player must say "He stole those tarts!"
If the Ace of Spades is played, the player must stand up, and sing "The Ace of Spades!!" in the style of Motörhead, with mandatory air-guitar.
If an 8 is played, the suit changes, and the player must say "8 of [suit], changing to [different suit]".
On some parts of the French Riviera, whenever anoyone picks up a card, they must emit a sharp squeak, or pick up another card. This may continue ad infinitum.

History

Rules for Mau Mau have existed at least since 1976.

Endgame

As soon as a player plays his last card, he must say "mau" to win the game. If the last card is a Jack, he must say "mau mau" for double score. If a player forgets to say "mau", he must draw cards as penalty (usually 4) and hasn't won.

Some possible Variations

Cards of the same value can be played all together within one turn.
If a 7 is played, the next player, who would have to draw two cards, can pass this penalty on to the subsequent player by playing a 7 too. This subsequent player must then draw 4 cards. He too could play a 7, requiring the next player to draw 6, etc.
You may not play a Jack on another Jack.
A popular variation is that a player must already say "mau" (or alternately "last card") as soon as he plays the penultimate card and has just one card left in his hand. Failure to do so usually means the player has to draw 2 or 4 cards.
An 8, 9, a 10 or an ace are sometimes used to reverse the direction of play (clockwise and counterclockwise) or to let the player take another turn before reversing. A player who fails to notice that the direction was reversed usually has to draw some number of cards as a penalty.
In some regions an ace is used instead of the 8 to let the next player skip his turn. Alternately, an ace lets all other players skip, so that whoever played it plays again right afterwards.
You may not end the game with a card that enables you to take another turn: you must then draw a card. If you can play it, you have won, otherwise the game goes on.
An interesting variation is that whenever a Queen is played, players have to try and grab one from a stack of objects (coins, matches, etc.) of which there are one less than the number of players. The player who fails to grab an object "didn't get a girl" and he must draw 2 or 4 cards.
In some regions you may not play cards in the same turn that you had to draw cards. Hence a 7 would result in the next player both having to draw two cards and effectively skipping his turn.
In one variation, after each hand is over the players except the one who won the hand count the points in their hands; the player with the most points is eliminated from the competition and play continues. Usually, kings are worth 50, queens and jacks are worth 20 each, aces are 1 each, and 2-10 have face value.
In some areas of Britain, the player who plays the ace of diamonds is required to pick up five cards at the start of his next turn.
Another house rule is that whoever wins the hand gets to choose a new rule but doesn't tell the rest of the players until the card or suit pertaining to the rule is used. Some variants don't ever require explaining the rule and simply allow players to penalize other players for failing to obey it.

In Austria and Bavaria a variation on the game is known as Neunerln.

In Portugal, a variation on this game is called Puque (reads as Poock, in English). The rules are almost the same, with the 2 replacing the 8 as the "skip turn" card. One must say Puque when one plays his next-to-last card, and doesn't have to say anyhting different to end with a Jack, still getting the double score.

Switch

In the UK, a variation on the game is known as Switch. The common rule differences are that two rather than seven causes the following player to pick up two cards, playing a jack will "jack it back", forcing the player to take another go before reversing the turn order, and that aces change the suit and can be played during the turn regardless of the present suit - the player playing the ace may state any suit as the suit the next player must play to. When the player plays his next-to-last card, he must say "last card", or be forced to pick up seven cards. Generally, numerical effects can be stacked and passed along, as with the above mentioned variation regarding sevens in Mau Mau, though this rule also applies to eights, with the number of turns missed by the next player increasing by one for each eight played in succession. Other rules allow placing multiple cards of the same value or multiple cards of the same suit and subsequent value. e.g. on a ten of Spades, a player could play three sixes, provided that the one at the bottom of the group was the six of spades. Alternatively, the player could play the three, four and five of spades. Some variations include a "chaining" rule, where the player can link these rules together, and could play the three, four, five and six of spades, the six of hearts, and the six, seven and eight of diamonds. As Switch has generally higher pick up penalties than Mau Mau (some variants include a requirement to pick up five upon the play of a black king, which like a two can be increased and passed along with another black king, for a total of ten cards), this helps the game progress faster, especially if the deck is not shuffled when there are no more face-down cards.

Tötenmaumau

This is a version of Mau Mau which was adapted in the late 1990s in Germany and became popular in California after the millennium. Tötenmaumau has a few rules added for more exciting gameplay: - It is played with four decks of cards to increase the occurrence of each particular card in the game. - The Ace is also an action card: A player who plays an Ace is required to play another card (which makes it an inconvenient card to finish up with) - Tossing is allowed: Since every card is present four times in the deck, it is possible to have a card on the hand that is currently on top of the discard stack. If a player has the same card which is on top of the discard stack and he or she is able put on the card before the player whose turn it is officially, that person loses his or her turn and all players in between are skipped. - Another rule regarding the draw-two 7: Sevens are added until a player does not have any to pass on and has to draw 2 cards for each 7 that has been played. However, if the first card drawn is a seven, he or she may play it and pass the burden of drawing to the next person, adding to cards to be drawn. - If a person finishes by playing all of his or her cards and the next person in turn happens to play the same card, the winner has to draw two cards and continue playing. - If a person finishes with a 7 and the 7 gets passed one whole round and comes back to the person who finished, the person has to draw all cards.

Another version including the "chain rule" is that aces (again) change the suit but the black jacks make the next player pick up seven cards and a red jack is the only way of cancelling it out. kings mean you get another go and queens swap direction of play.

David Parlett (in 'The Penguin Book of Card Games', 1978) describes a UK version of Switch where the above rule for the aces applies, but an ace can only be played if the player can play no other card. In this variation no other cards have a special purpose, which keeps it simple for children. Parlett points out that the game works fine for 6-8 players if 2 52-card packs are used.