Calypso

The Trinidad and Tobago flag. On a red background there is a white-edged black diagonal stripe from the top-left to bottom-right.
The flag of Trinidad and Tobago (since independence in 1962).

This page contains some information about the 1950s Trinidadian card game Calypso.

Although there are a few other places online with some information about the game, it doesn't currently have a huge presence on the web. This page aims add a few useful bits and pieces, and fill a couple of gaps.

Skip ahead to read the rules, follow an example game, read a little bit of strategy, see information on variants and related games, find places to play Calypso, read a little about the history of the game, check out some probabilities and numbers around the game, see other resources for the Calypso enthusiast, or get in touch.

It has been variously described (contemporaneously) in tag-line terms as:

There is without doubt a heavy luck element to any individual game, which may not appeal to all (although see variants and related games for some attempts to address this), but there is certainly enough freedom for skillful play to become relevant, especially over the course of a number of games.

Game Overview

A multi-colour cartoon of four people each with a different suit on their head play a game of cards at a table.
A cartoon of a game of Calypso. Edited version of an original 1950's advert.

Calypso is a card game for four players, played with four identical standard 52-card packs of cards. It is a trick-taking game, played in partnerships, where each player has their own distinct trump suit, with the primary aim being to collect cards of this suit in 13-card runs called 'Calypsoes'.

A game takes place over four deals, with a quarter of the deck being dealt out for each, so that after the fourth deal you have made it through the entire deck. The rules are fairly straightforward, and can be picked up in five or ten minutes, although a couple of the rules of trick-play can take a moment to get used to. A single game tends to lasts around twenty/twenty-five minutes.

The feel of the game is much less like a plain-trick card game (where the number of tricks you win is what matters), and more like a point-trick card game (where the cards you win in tricks matters), although an unusual one given that the value of cards changes during play.

Rules of Calypso

There are a few places online with the rules of Calypso available, but I doubt one more could hurt, particularly as there is one particular rule that is often explained ambiguously, or sometimes outrightly incorrectly (as far as the original rules go). I'll try to be as explicit as possible (meaning clarity, rather than rudeness), but hopefully without getting too bogged down in technicalities.

Setup

To play the game you will need four players. There are versions for three, five, six, or more, but I'm not going to talk about those here - you can find details in the variants section, although they all require an understanding of the standard partnership version, so you should probably keep reading unless you are already well-versed.

If you have managed to gather together four of you and are feeling pretty smug and ready to start playing - hold on a second! You are also going to need some playing cards. You will need four 'standard' 52-card decks of cards (sometimes called 'Bridge decks' or 'Poker decks'), ideally with a matching back-pattern (though you can get away with mismatched packs if needs be). These together form a 'quad-deck' of 208 (= 52 x 4) cards, with each rank (from low to high: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace) and suit (unranked: Clubs, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds) combination appearing four times. You will also need a little bit of a flat surface, such as a table, to play on (as there will often be a few cards laid out during a game - not so easy for example playing on a bus), and something to make note of the scores at the end of the game (pen and paper, a phone, computer, chalkboard - whatever tickles your fancy). You might also want to find something to serve as renounce indicators.

The game is played in partnerships (i.e. two teams of two, playing against each other), with each player having their own personal trump suit, with Spades and Hearts playing against Clubs and Diamonds (if you are a Bridge player you can think of this as the major suits versus the minor suits, although in Calypso there is no hierarchy; each suit is as good as any other). If you have already agreed partnerships, suits, and who will deal first, then you can skip ahead to the deal, otherwise this is the 'official' procedure for deciding (official according to the book of Kenneth Konstam. And I suppose me, by virtue of this page. But do whatever you want, no-one is going to come after you if you do something different, or proclaim your game of Calypso as 'invalid'.):

The deal

The deck should be shuffled thoroughly before the game begins, particularly if you have just played a game of Calypso, as suits will naturally end up 'clumped together'. In practice, to shuffle it might prove easiest to divide it up into batches to be shuffled separately, before recombining and shuffling all together (and perhaps repeating this process a few times), as a 208-card deck is pretty cumbersome to handle directly. The deck will not need to be shuffled again for the duration of the game, so feel free to take a little longer shuffling than you ordinarily might for a game where you shuffle between each hand. Once the deck is properly shuffled, the first deal begins.

For each deal, the player to the right of dealer cuts the remaining deck, and the dealer then deals thirteen cards to each player, one at a time, beginning with the player to their left, and continuing sunwise (i.e. clockwise). Similarly to shuffling, it may prove useful for dealing purposes to try and lift a smaller portion of the pack to deal with, and taking an extra batch from the top of the deck if you run out of cards in your batch before everyone has thirteen. Once the cards have been dealt, the remainder of the deck is passed to the player left of the dealer, who places it at their left. This will not be necessary on the fourth and final deal of the game, as at that point the deck should be entirely exhausted (although see irregularities for how to handle the situation where you end up with extra cards leftover, or not having enough).

After the hand is finished, the player to dealer's left (who will have the deck-remainder at their left) will be the dealer for the next hand, following the same procedure as above, except without the need to reshuffle. This continues until all four players have dealt exactly once - in this way the entire deck ends up dealt out over the course of four hands, a quarter at a time.

Trick-play

The rules of trick-play can take a bit of getting used to, but ultimately are not too complicated. However, the rules as written in several sources (including 'official' sources such as Konstam's book) are sometimes worded ambiguously, so I shall try to make these crystal-clear, and furnish enough examples for reference.

In terms of admin, left of dealer leads to the first trick of a hand, and thereafter the winner of each trick leads to the next, until the hand is finished. Players must follow suit if able, but if unable may play any card. These are the same rules as in many other games, such as (to name only a few) Bridge, Whist, Spades, Skat, Piquet, Solo, and Oh Hell! (and is expressed as f,tr in Parlett's notation).

Players who are not leading to a trick will therefore do one of three distinct things:

Note that players must follow suit if able, otherwise they may freely choose to either trump in or discard. If a player is following suit to a trick in their personal trump suit, then following suit is not deemed to be trumping in - by definition you can only trump in when you are not following suit. Thus, if your personal trump suit is led, in that trick your options will only ever be to follow suit (which you must do if able) or discard (which you will be forced to do if you cannot follow suit).

The rules governing who wins the trick are as follows:

The problem rule

There is one rule in particular which is often not clearly written, is a frequent point of confusion for newcomers, and is sometimes outright stated incorrectly. This is what occurs when a player trumps in to a trump lead, and they play a card which is lower in rank than the leaders card. The rules outlined above already cover this case, and hopefully make enough sense that no further clarification is necessary, but I want to be agonisingly clear on this point: In such a case the winner of the trick can never be the leader, and will always be a player trumping in, regardless of the rank of the led card. Two things follow from this fact:

  • If you lead your personal trump suit, the rank of the card is completely irrelevant to winning the trick (although the rank matters for forming Calypsoes). If no-one else trumps in, you win the trick, or if someone else does trump in, you will lose the trick. As far as winning the trick goes, leading a 2 is just as good as leading an Ace.
    • In an equivalent way to think about it, as described by Charles Goren, leading your personal trump suit is just the same as leading any other suit, except that the card led acts as though it were an Ace.
  • No lead is safe - no card led will guarantee you winning the trick (until a stage in the game where you know enough about your opponents' hands, or remaining cards that you needn't worry). Whatever suit you lead, if someone else trumps in, you will not win the trick, regardless of the rank of your lead card. This is in contrast to most trick-taking games, where leading the Ace of trumps ( or whatever the highest trump is in that game) will usually guarantee winning the trick.

This confusion in this rule often arises from use of phrases along the line of 'the highest personal trump played wins the trick', but what is not clear from this phrasing is that this does NOT include any personal trump which led the trick. Even some of the 'official' rules phrasings are ambiguous around this point, although fortunately various examples of play clarify precisely exactly how this works. As such, on this page you can see some example tricks below to help clarify this (as well as the other rules of trick-play).

Aside from the above point of confusion, the two other things that can trip up new players are the facts that:

Example tricks

As these rules can take a bit of digestion, it is perhaps useful to outline a bunch of example tricks to show the rules in action. In all cases the leader is North, the Spades (♠) player.

North (♠) East (♦) South (♥) West (♣) Winner Reason
4 ♠ 6 ♠ K ♠ 4 ♠ North Led personal trump, no-one trumped in
A ♠ A ♠ 3 ♠ 4 ♠ North Led personal trump, no-one trumped in
10 ♠ 6 ♣ J ♠ 2 ♠ North Led personal trump, no-one trumped in
10 ♠ 6 ♦ J ♠ 2 ♠ East Trumped in, no-one else did (NB the problem rule - East wins despite 6 being lower than led 10)
10 ♠ 6 ♦ 6 ♥ 2 ♠ East Trumped in, no-one else played a higher trump (South only tied - ties go the earliest card). (NB the problem rule - East wins despite 6 being lower than the led 10)
10 ♠ 6 ♦ 7 ♥ 2 ♣ South Trumped in with the highest trump played ('overtrumping') (NB the problem rule - South wins despite 7 (and 6) being lower than the led 10)
10 ♠ 6 ♦ 7 ♥ 9 ♣ West Trumped in with the highest trump played ('overtrumping') (NB the problem rule - West wins despite 9 (and 6 and 7) being lower than the led 10)
3 ♦ 6 ♦ K ♦ 4 ♦ South Highest card of (non-trump) suit led. Note that East is deemed to be following suit here, and holds no special position just because their trump suit is Diamonds. To win the trick they would have needed to play the highest card.
3 ♦ 6 ♦ K ♦ K ♦ South Highest card of (non-trump) suit led (ties go to earliest card)
3 ♦ A ♦ K ♦ A ♦ East Highest card of (non-trump) suit led (unrelated to the fact that ♦ is East's trump suit)
3 ♦ A ♣ K ♦ A ♦ West Highest card of (non-trump) suit led
8 ♦ A ♦ 4 ♥ A ♠ South Trumped in (no-one else did)
8 ♦ A ♦ 4 ♥ 2 ♣ South Trumped in (highest card to do so)
8 ♠ 8 ♠ 8 ♠ 8 ♠ North Led personal trump, no-one trumped in
8 ♦ 8 ♦ 8 ♦ 8 ♦ North Highest card of (non-trump) suit led (ties go to earliest card)
8 ♠ 8 ♦ 8 ♥ 8 ♣ East Trumped in, no-one else played a higher trump (the other two only tied - ties go the earliest card)

Renounce indicators

In card games, people make mistakes. Through unfamiliarity with the game, distractions, or brainfarts, sometimes players will play a card that is not legal for them to play, which must be dealt with in some way. However, in practical terms, Calypso offers a couple of challenges for being able to keep track of this.

One aspect that makes it slightly challenging is the fact that, from the 208-card deck, only a quarter of the cards are in play in any individual deal. This means that the exact cards in play during a deal are generally not known until the end of it, and so it can be harder to keep track of the different suits, and knowledge about players' holdings in them. For instance, in Bridge, say, if 8 spades been played, and you hold five in your hand, you already know that no other player can have any spades left. Usually you are not in a position to be able to make such a deduction in Calypso.

A more challenging (from a practical point-of-view) consideration, however, is the fact that tricks are 'destructive'. At the end of a trick, some cards may go into a trickpile, while others may go to the in-progress calypsoes of the trick-winner, or their partner. This 'forgetting' of where cards have come from means that it is not possible, in general, to inspect previously-played tricks. Thus in cases where there is some dispute or query about previous actions in a deal ("You just followed suit to that hearts trick, but I'm sure earlier on you played a trump to one") there is no way of checking, as there tends to be in most other trick-taking games (where cards are often collected as individual trick-packets, or players retain their own cards in trick-order so that trickplay is recreatable).

For these reasons renounce indicators were introduced as part of the boxed sets, as well as being baked into the laws of the game. The Calypso book by Alfred Sheinwold contained a page of these indicators so players could cut out a full set, should they be lacking. Each player has four of these — one for each of the four suits. They must be something that can exist in two states — 'off' and 'on'. These usually take the form of cards that on their face say, for example, 'The Clubs player has not followed suit to Hearts'.

All players start a deal with these face-down ('off'), and then when a player fails to follow suit for the first time to a suit, they must turn the appropriate indicator face-up ('on'). This means that all players can see which suits each other player have failed to follow suit to in a given deal. If a player neglects to turn their indicator up, they can be prompted by the other players. At the end of deal, these are all turned face-down once more.

If you do not have a set, you can improvise with pen and paper, or with a separate (fifth!) deck of cards if you have one (ideally quite different looking, so as not confuse them with in-play cards. I find a miniature deck works quite well, with each player using all four cards of a different rank).

Should a player commit a revoke in a competitive game, the opposing side receives a bonus of 260 points. The cost is especially steep as the difference of a few cards can mean the difference between an incomplete and a complete calypso - this being the minimal price difference between them.

Collecting calypsoes

The primary aim of the game is for players to collect Calypsoes - these are thirteen-card collections in their personal trump suit, with precisely one card of each rank, from 2 up to Ace. As a Calypso is being built up, the cards towards it are placed face up on the table in front the player. During a game there will usually be partial Calypsoes in front of each player. These must be placed so that everyone in the game can see all of the cards that each player has towards their Calypso. Players can only build one Calypso at a time - they must complete their first before accumulating cards for a second.

As well as an area for placing in-progress Calypsoes, players will each need a pile to put completed Calypsoes (which they stack face-up), and a face-down trick-pile where other cards will go. Players only need one trick-pile between each partnership.

When a player wins a trick, they gather together the four cards played to the trick, and distribute them accordingly:

When a player completes a Calypso, the thirteen cards are gathered up into a pile, and laid face-up next to that player's trick-pile. They are then entitled to start building up cards towards a new Calypso. There is an exception, however, to duplicate cards being discarded to the trick-pile: if a player completes a Calypso with a card from a trick, any would-be duplicates in that trick can instead count towards the new Calypso. Say, for example, a player needs only the 7 for a Calypso, and wins a trick with 7, 8, 8, K of their trump suit, they will take the 7 (thus completing the Calypso), lay down 8, K towards the new Calypso, and add the duplicate 8 to their trick-pile. This happens regardless of the order of the cards played to the trick.

Scoring

Play consists of four deals, so that after the fourth hand all 208 cards have been played to tricks, over the course of those four deals. Only at the end of the fourth hand is the game scored. Players then receive the following points:

Note that partners score for Calypsoes separately - partners with a single Calypso each will score 500 + 500 = 1000 for these, rather than 500 + 750 = 1250. After this calculation, partners add their total scores together, and the partnership with the highest score wins.

Calypso strategy

Having read the rules to Calypso you know how to play the game, but you may not yet know how to play. While there is undoubtedly a reasonable luck factor to an individual game, there is certainly room enough to flex some tactical muscles in the game. All the books on Calypso dedicate a considerable number of pages to discussing strategic considerations.

If you are a complete novice and/or just wish to avoid irritating a more experienced partner, a quick simple guide that will serve you pretty well is:

There is more detail on these points (and others) in what follows (and I will gradually expand this section), but following those points shouldn't steer you too far wrong. At the very least it should certainly help you navigate your first few games without any major blunders.

General advice

Calypso is a game about collecting cards of your trump suit, and your partner's trump suit. First and foremost in your mind should be to trying to make sure your partnership ends up with cards needed to complete calypsoes, whilst denying your opponents the same. In tricks that you are likely to win, focus on getting cards your partnership needs towards their next calypsoes, and discarding cards your opponents need. On tricks that you are likely to lose, discard cards (where possible) that are not useful to you or your opponents.

On the other hand, do not focus so much on collecting calypso cards that you neglect to win tricks full of 'useless' cards. I often like to think of Calypso as point-trick game, where the points each card is worth are context-dependent. From this angle:

In practice it is comparitively rare to get more than one calypso individually, so for the majority of cases a calypso card is worth at most around four times a 'plain suit' card. While this is certainly significant, it is not earth-shattering - a lot of tricks in the game will end up in the trickpile, and winning four of these is (almost) just as good as winning a trick with all cards going towards calypsoes. As Alfred Sheinwold says in his section Don't Sniff At The Junk Pile: "If you pay careful attention to winning as many tricks as possible, you will tend to get your fair share of calypso cards and you will tend to keep away from the opponents some of the calypso cards that they need. At the end of the game you will be far better off than the player who keeps his eye peeled for calypso cards but doesn't care much about the other tricks."

I know from experience that it is possible to win a game despite having fewer calypsoes than the opponents, which ultimately comes down to making up the difference with extra cards in the trickpile.

Leading

A lot of the focus of Calypso strategy is around what to lead. Despite the fact (at the start of a hand at least) no leads are safe, choice of lead can have a big effect on the likelihood of your partnership winning the trick (or of winning future tricks). The most important aspect is in regards to the suit you will lead.

Leading your own trump suit

Leading your own trump suit is pretty tempting. If everyone else follows suit, we automatically win the trick, regardless of the ranks of the suit we or anyone else has. It also starts us accruing cards towards our next calypso.

There are a couple of downsides though. One is that opponents will be aiming to discard cards that duplicate ranks already present in your calypso-in-progress, or within the trick itself, which can limit your ability to complete multiple calypsoes. If opponents run out of your suit, you may also lose key cards if an opponent ruffs. It may also limit your own ability to trump in later in the hand, and thus regain the crucial lead.

As such, leading your own suit is usually best when you have only a few low-ranked trumps. There is little point saving them for ruffing, as they are more vulnerable to being overpowered by other trumps, but more seriously they are likely to be lost when an opponent leads a high card of your trump suit.

If you have a high card, such as an ace, or perhaps a king, it may be best to play on another suit, as you are likely to be able to win back the lead if your trump suit is led by an opponent. It may also prove useful in trumping in to a crucial trick.

Leading opponents' trump suit

The fact that in Calypso everyone has a unique trump suit means that when you lead a suit, you are only 'drawing trumps' for one specific player. Leading the trump suit of one of your opponents means that they lose a trump (if they still have any), while you don't. Thus it is often very advantageous to do so. It also means that the opponent in question is unable to trump the trick - the only way they can win is by using high cards of their suit.

If you have a high card of an opponent's suit, this is nearly always a useful lead. An ace in particular (or king if the aces have all been out) gives a very high chance of winning the trick - the only way to lose it is if opponent's partner trumps in. This allows partner the opportunity to safely discard any cards they have that are needed for opponent's calypsoes, as well as depleting the relevant opponent of valuable trumps. With a few high cards of their suit, you may be able to bleed them of all their trump holdings before they get a chance to benefit from them. An opponent who you know holds no trump cards is very advantageous, and allows you to play cards more safely.

Of course, there are two opponents, so a natural question to consider is which of their suits to lead? Obviously if you hold high cards in one that is useful as it makes it more likely to retain the lead, but beyond that there are a couple of things to consider.

If you hold more cards in one than the other, it is usually best to lead the longer. This gives you more opportunity to 'outlast' the player whose suit it is, and thus have some length winners. If there is nothing between them, then it tends to be better to focus on the suit of your right-hand-opponent. If you deplete them of trumps, then any remaining winners you have in the suit allow partner to play whatever they like to safe in the knowledge that fourth hand will not be able to win the trick.

Additionally of crucial consideration is the situation with calypsoes. If you hold cards crucial for an opponent to complete a calypso you probably don't want to leave that card exposed by playing off others in the suit. If they need one or two only, say, you may be inclined to play aces of this suit so that partner can (relatively) safely get rid of these missing ranks if they hold any.

Leading your partner's trump suit

You should be wary about leading your partner's trump suit. Any such lead means that partner is unable to trump in, whilst both opponents potentially can. It also depletes partner of a trump card, which they may well need later in the hand. Another potential danger is the fact that, if partner turns out to be out of cards in their suit, you risk exposing this information to the opponents unduly.

There may be occasions when it is necessary. For example, if partner needs only an Ace for a calypso, and you hold one, cashing this in a fairly safe manner may be a good idea (although consider whether you may be able to win back the lead with this from an opponent's lead of the suit). A singleton Ace, also, may be in danger of being lost if an opponent leads another Ace of this suit, so may be prudent to cash. It may also be that this is the 'least bad' option, compared to other suits you hold - or you may simply have no other suits from which to lead.

Nevertheless, if you are about to lead your partner's trump suit, you should always first ask yourself if it is really a good idea to do so. Partner will rarely thank you for doing so if you had other, more sensible options available instead.

Conventions

In plain-trick card games, if you are not going to win the trick, then it doesn't really matter what card you play (beyond retaining cards that will be of use in the future/discarding problematic cards). This means that the choice of card to play can instead be used to convey some information - for instance Contract Bridge makes frequent use of card signals of various sorts.

In point-trick games there is a bit less scope for this, as the choice of cards to add to tricks often has direct game implications (although some games do employ such systems, such as Cointrée), and Calypso in particular often presents situtations where the choice of discard is goverened by denying/supplying required cards.

Nevertheless there is potential scope for (limited) card-signaling conventions. Jo Culberston recommends a couple of conventions you may wish to experiment with, which I outline below.

For what it's worth, Alfred Sheinwold discourages bothering with conventions, saying "Calypso is not really a complicated game, but there is quite enough to think about during the play. There is no need to drag in unworkable signals that can succeed only in distracting your attention from the plays that you really should be noticing.". Ewart Kempson (admittedly writing slightly earlier) agrees: "...I have no doubt that great efforts will be made to introduce artificialities, but, as yet, I am unable to see how they can succeed. To arrange a series of card signals, such as playing a high card before playing a low card, or discarding from one suit instead of another, will do a partnership far more harm than good—or so, at least, it seems to me.".

So perhaps see what you make of these, and experiment with them to see if they are worth the trouble.

Doubleton echo

The basic principle of this convention should be familiar to Bridge players. It gives a means of conveying to partner the information that you have precisely two cards of their trump suit. To enact it, if partner leads two rounds of their personal trumps, you play your higher card of that suit to the first trick, and the lower card to the second trick. On the second trick, partner will see that you have played lower the second time round, and will take that to mean that you:

The idea is that if you only hold two cards of partner's suit, the opponents likely have more, so partner can safely play a third round, giving you the opportunity to discard problematic cards (such as one needed to complete an opposing calypso), or perhaps even to take the lead by ruffing partner.

Of course, game circumstance will dictate whether, when holding a doubleton in partner's suit, you wish to actually signal the echo - if not, you must then play the cards in ascending order so as to not mislead partner. I am personally not sure whether the advantages of using the echo outweigh the cost of constraining your play to partner's suit (as note for example that any time you have more than two cards of their suit, you must play the first two in nondescending order). I think it at least is worth experimenting with - probably the constraint is not too costly in most circumstances anyhow.

Suit signals

Culbertson also outlines some basic conventions for discarding on partner's lead (when you hold no cards of their suit) to signal which opponent's suit to attack. The convention is that to discourage partner from leading a particular suit, you first discard a card of that suit, followed next by a card of the opposite suit. For instance, say partner leads their trump suit (Hearts), and you have no Hearts, but have both Clubs (headed by an Ace), and Diamonds (headed by a ten). You are much more likely to win the lead if partner attacks Clubs before Diamonds. As such, on partner's Hearts lead, you first discard a Diamond (indirect/discouraging signal), and if partner leads another Heart, you clarify this by discarding a Club.

The idea is that primarily your discard strategy will be to attempt to void yourself in a short suit, so that partner may give you ruffs. Generally, then, partner will assume that the suit you discard initially is one you are short in, and will in due course lead this suit to allow you to trump in. This convention then allows you to tell partner you have no prospect of ruffing, by discarding from both suits. The logic in having the first suit be the one you don't want led is that:

There is another layer to this, however. There may be situations where you wish to strategically discard, but still encourage the lead of the suit. For example if you hold Axx, and want to leave yourself with just the Ace - discarding two of these followed by the opposite suit may be read as discouraging. You may also have 'danger cards' you want to unburden yourself of (say those that would complete an opponent's calypso), but also hold a stopper.

Culbertson allows for this situation with the following convention: two discards of the same suit in an echo (discarding the high card first, then the lower card) is to be read as encouraging. This addition provides a further complication for the case where the discards are interrupted - a partner seeing only a single discard does not know if it is discouraging (the start of a two-suit discard) or encouraging (the start of an echo). In such a situation they will need to use judgement - a 'high' card is likely to be encouraging (start of an echo), while a low is more likely discouraging. Employing this convention, then, means that if you are intending to use two-suit discouraging, it is best to discard initially with a low card.

Although I see the benefit of helping direct partner's lead, again I am unsure if the situations where you gain useful information outnumber the situations where you are forced by the convention to discard suboptimally or mislead partner. My current feeling is that this is probably more useful than not, but am happy to hear any further insights from anyone!

Further conventions

I am not aware of any other conventions, nor have I contrived any. I would be keen to hear of any others, either from some source, or self-created. Do get in touch!

Calypso in numbers

See Calypso in numbers for probabilities relevant for Calypso, as well as various other quantitative considerations relevant to the game.

Variants and related games

There are several different variants of Calypso in existence. Many, although not all are designed to mitigate the relatively high luck factor inherent in a single standard game of Calypso, or to cater to different numbers of players in some fashion or other. If you know of any others, or have devised one yourself that you feel may warrant inclusion on this page, please do get in touch.

Variant trickplay rules

Not necessarily quite distinct games in and of themselves, but there are a couple of different sets of trickplay rules available to play.

These can of course, if desired, be combined with any of the other variant games described hereafter.

Beat the leader

Some play that the problem rule does not apply. In other words, in order to win a trick in which a player has led their personal trump suit, you must play a personal trump of a higher rank than the led card.

In my opinion this makes the game less interesting, as it makes the lead especially powerful, and means that high trumps are never really 'at risk', although your mileage may vary.

I don't know to what extent this rule developed/is played deliberately vs. a misunderstanding of the original rules.

All Fours Calypso

This is a variation of trickplay rules of my own suggestion. It combines the 'beat the leader' rule with the ability to trump a trick even when you can follow suit. In other words, the changes are:

You can read more about the rationale behind this rule in this blog post.

This rule of course also affects the use of renounce indicators — these only need to be faced when a player discards to a trick, not when trumping ( as they are legally allowed to play a trump while still holding cards of the led suit).

The rule for following suits (ft,tr in Parlett notation) is the same as in the card game All Fours, and other related games. The fact that All Fours is a popular game in Trinidad provides a nice additional link to Calypso, and so feels like a good choice for naming this variant (even though I originally thought of it in the context of Swiss Jass games).

Originally I called this 'the Swiss rule', as I had not made the connexion to All Fours. That was even a poor fit as a name, as it should really have been the swiss-like or swiss-ish, as these rules were originally inspired by, but not quite the same as, those played in Swiss Jass games. If those games are more familiar to you, then you may refer to this as Swiss Calypso, or if you are in the mood for something extremely tortuous, then perhaps even Calswisspso might tickle your fancy.

Duplicate Calypso

Calypso that's so good you play it twice. Not to be confused with the Duple Calypso, a 1980s British coach design.

Kenneth Konstam, in his book, describes rules for Duplicate Calypso, much in the same vein as Duplicate Bridge (in fact he makes the incredibly far-reaching claim "Apart from Contract Bridge no other game lends itself to this test of skill which obviates the necessity for a monetary stake and turns the game into a match with the element of luck minimised.". I would say this is probably not true.). If you do ever manage to gather together eight willing Calypso players who don't mind a bit of extra admin (or possibly even more??), perhaps it is worth a try.

The version described by Konstam is for two teams of four - he calls them 'A' and 'B', but we will use a slight whisker more imagination and refer to them as the 'Adders' and the 'Badgers'. Each team is split into two partnerships - one for the 'major suits' (to borrow Bridge terminology), Hearts (♥) and Spades (♠), and the other for the 'minor suits', Clubs (♣) and Diamonds (♦).

Ideally you will need two quadruple-decks of cards (so eight(!) standard packs), so as to facilitate two games. These will be shuffled separately, each ready for a game of Calypso. The arrangement of one deck will be referred to as game 1, with the other being for game 2 (each with a fixed choice of opening dealer).

Two games occur (potentially, though not necessarily) simultaneously - the major suits Adders will play game one against the minor suit Badgers (at 'table 1'), whilst the minor suit Adders play game two against the major suit Badgers (at 'table 2'). Once both games are complete and scored, the games switch, meaning that the decks must be re-arranged into the position they were in at the start of the game. Then each foursome plays with the other deck, so that the major suits Adders will now play game two against the minor suit Badgers, whilst the minor suit Adders will now play game one against the major suit Badgers.

Obviously you will need some method of recreating the decks into their original state (or something equivalent), which is a more arduous task than in Bridge, due to the fact that

One option would be to have an independent 'referee'/'director' to take care of this side of things, but this is probably a bit of a luxury. Another choice would be to get everyone to make a note of their cards at the start of each hand, so that they can then, at the end of the game, recreate their set of hands - perhaps placing them in envelopes labelled 'Spades player hand 1', 'Diamonds player hand 3' etc., ready to be passed to the other foursome.

Scoring for the match is then calculated by adding up the four scores for each team - i.e. summing up

and similarly for the Adders team. That way the luck of the cards is 'balanced' by the fact that the different partnerships of each team will play with each set of cards in the deal, and thus any differences in score between the teams arises solely through how the two teams played the same hands differently, which in theory should tend to be more skill-driven than playing individual games (where sometimes just getting great or terrible cards overrides any amount of skill involved on the part of the players).

This could of course be extended to multiple tables, to accomodate greater numbers, using a system of matchpoints, as in Bridge, where each for each game a partnership is scored in accordance with the proportion of other partnerships playing the same set of hands whom they score more than. In the unlikely event anyone should care to play the game in such a fashion I'm sure details would be fairly straightforward to hash out.

Cutthroat Calypso

There is a version of Calypso described generally in books on Calypso, where each player plays for themselves (i.e. no partnerships). It is variously called "All-against-all Calypso" (by Konstam), "Single Calypso" (also Konstam), "Four-handed Calypso" (by Kempson), or "Four-hand Cutthroat Calypso" (by Culbertson).

The rules are identical to the standard partnership version, except that upon winning a trick a player takes cards of their own trump suit only towards a Calypso, with all three other suits going immediately to their trick-pile, as players have no partners. Of course, at the end of the game, each player simply counts only their own score, with the highest being the winner.

By most accounts this is not as interesting a game as the standard partnership version, although a noteable exception is Ewart Kempson, who actually prefers the cutthroat game to the partnership one: "Generally sparking partnership games are superior to games composed of individual players, but my own preference at Calypso is towards the four-handed game where each of the players battles away against the other three. It is---when played in the right company---a really hilarious game and one in which a good player may, at times, shine. The luck in the individual game is, perhaps, even greater than in the partnership game, but there are far more openings for brilliant play. Four-handed Calypso bears some slight resemblance to one of the best of all card games---Hearts. At both, the advanced player tries to preserve a balance of power. While all out for himself, he will---when forced to give something away---strive to benefit the opponent who is furthest behind."

Three-handed Cutthroat Calypso

As well as outlining the rules of Cutthroat Calypso for four, books on Calypso also tend to describe a three-handed version. This is version is played using 'only' three packs of cards, by removing one suit from all three decks (generally unspecified which, although Culbertson gives Clubs as an example, and Parlett says that Spades is conventional. I would instead recommend Diamonds, as I think it is uncontroversial to say that this is clearly the worst of the four standard French suits), leaving a deck of 117 (13 x 3 x 3) cards of only three suits. Play is identical to the four-handed version, except that it takes place of course over only three deals.

Generally there is not much written about this version, and what is written tends to not be too positive - for instance Culbertson says of it "We do not think this variant will become popular. It scarcely admits of any strategy but leading one's personal trump to exhaustion, then resigning oneself to fate.". Even Kempson, who was a self-admitted fan of the four-handed cutthroat version has at best some pretty muted praise: "Like all three-handed versions of four-handed games, Calypso for Three is a makeshift, but it can be a vastly entertaining gamble.", and his summary I suspect will convince very few to try this version: "It is better than some other three-handed games and much better than sitting out in the rain.". While indeed there may be worse three-player card games, there are certainly a host of better ones - personal suggestions include Skat, Coiffeur, Ninety-Nine, Ulti, and Vira. Alternatively John McLeod has an even wider host of suggested options.

Both David Parlett and Alfred Sheinwold have alternate versions of Calypso for three players that attempt to address some of the shortcomings of the plain cutthroat version.

Split-partnership Calypso

David Parlett suggests a version of Calypso for three players that differs slightly from the cutthroat version. Play is identical, but at the end players get a total score which is the sum of their personal score, and that of the player to their right. This allows for some more interesting play than in the pure cutthroat form, as one is invested in helping out the right-hand player, so that the game can still capture some of the interesting facets contained in the partnership verson of the game, as it lies somewhere between an all-against-all version and the partnership version.

To simplify the scoring, an equivalent method is for your score to simply be the negative of the 'standard score' of the player to your left. This simply shifts the three scores down by a fixed amount as compared to the originally outlined method (the amount of the shift being the sum of the three standard scores).

Sheinwold's Calypso for Three

In his book, Alfred Sheinwold outlines an alternative version of Calypso for three players. He titles it simply Sheinwold's Calypso for Three but, as that is somewhat of a mouthful, I would suggest perhaps instead Neutralised Calypso.

In this version, you remove a single 2♣ from a quadruple deck, leaving a 207-card deck (a multiple of 3, note). Play is as in the usual Three-handed Calypso, except that Clubs is nobody's personal trump suit, acting instead as a 'neutral suit' - i.e. it always functions as a side-suit, which Sheinwold says "...poses interesting problems of its own.". A game consists of four deals of 13 hands each, and a fifth and final deal of 17 cards. Note that 3 x (4x13 + 17) = 207.

One could of course combine this approach with David Parlett's suggestion, to create Neutralised Split-partnership Calypso. Simply play Sheinwold's version as described here, but tally the final scores using Parlett's method of combining your score with that of your right-hand-opponent.

Calypso for Five or Six

As well as suggestion an alternate way to play Calypso with three, Alfred Sheinwold also devised rules to play Calypso with five or six players. Structurally the game is much as the standard four-player version, but with some players sitting out each hand, similarly to how things work in several other card games when you have an extra player (such as Skat, Doppelkopf, or Paskievics).

Five players play as a team of two against a team of three, whereas six players play two teams of three. In teams of three, one player sits out for each hand, with the player who has just sat out of a hand replacing the outgoing player. Players sit out alternately, such that whichever of the three sits out for the first hand of the game also sits out for the last. Care must be taken, though, as this arrangement means that individual players will have different trump suits at different points of the game. For instance, let us suppose we have a team of three, Kenneth, Josephine, and Alfred, playing the major suits. Then we would have, for the four hands:

  1. Kenneth (♥), Josephine (♠), [Alfred sits out]
  2. Kenneth (♥), Alfred (♠), [Josephine sits out] {Alfred replaces Josephine}
  3. Josephine (♥), Alfred (♠), [Kenneth sits out] {Josephine replaces Kenneth}
  4. Josephine (♥), Kenneth (♠), [Alfred sits out] {Kenneth replaces Alfred}

so that both Kenneth and Josephine play with Spades and Hearts as their personal trumps at different hands of the game.

For six, Sheinwold ensures there is no downtime for the two sitting out: "The two inactive players should be active elsewhere, or may kibitz, but they should not offer any advice or comment at any time during the play. They may help score at the end of the hand, and they may join in a discussion of the facts and the law in case of an irregularity. (Try to stop 'em!)". For five, the player sitting out has the usual options of observing, trying to grab a quick drink at the bar, nipping to the loo, or sending a message to a loved one to say that they will not be home for some number of hours as they are deep into an evening of Calypso that shows no signs of abating.

Calypso for Many

In Alfred Sheinwold's world, counting seems to go: Three, Four, Five, Six, Many (although he in fact uses the phrase 'Large Parties' - this probably, in practice, means a good twelve or more. Fewer numbers will just have to split into groups and play separate games of Calypso.).

In his unfailing mission to cater for a wide variety of group sizes, Sheinwold gives yet another option for playing Calypso (coming in two slightly different flavours - for partnerships or for individuals), in some ways similar to Duplicate Calypso (but without the duplicate part), and not dissimilar to a Whist drive or Progressive Bridge. We might refer to this as Progressive Calypso (which is incidentally the name of a Calypso song by Tinou Lavital).

You start off with a series of tables - enough for one per foursome, each given a sequential number. Each table needs its own 208-card deck. Ideally you will have a multiple of four people, but if not you can account for the extras by having some tables play with five or six. Over the course of the session, each table will be a playing a game simultaneously. Sheinwold suggests a host/director makes periodic announcements to ensure everyone is approximately keeping pace with one another: '"You should be finishing the first deal," or "second deal,", and so on.'. Once everyone has completed the first game, tables are changed as outlined below, and then the second game continues similarly. Sheinwold says "Four or five games make a very enjoyable session."., but obviously you can play as many or as few as suits your group.

If you wish to play in fixed partnerships these can either be agreed beforehand, or decided at the start of the session by cutting cards (or even a mix of both). Partnerships should generally be pairs, but some may be of three people if needs be (or if desired - play how you like!). Each partnership stays with the same pair of trump suits for the session. The Spades/Hearts players stay at the same table for the session, but after each hand the Clubs/Diamonds players move to the next highest-numbered table (wrapping around from the highest-numbered table to table 1). Any tables of five or six will need to play according to the rules for five or six, and the teams of three should ensure that between games they alternate the order in which they sit out, to ensure that a different player misses out on two hands each game. Each partnership has a 'tally card', and after each game they make note of the difference in scores as a plus/minus figure. At the end of the session, each partnership sums up all of these figures, and they can all be ranked. A check can be made that these totals added up across all partnerships comes to nil, to help catch potential errors.

If instead you want to play for individual scores, fill up the tables initially by whatever method suits best. Then before each game, at each table, players cut for partnerships. Play at each table is still in partnerships (following the standard rules for tables of four, or the version for five or six if you have any larger tables) - it's just that partnerships will change after each game. After each hand, the winners stay where they are, and the losers move up a table. Before the start of the next game, there is another cut, with the highest newcomer (who just lost at a different table) playing with the highest remaining player (who just won at this table). This means that the partnerships get shuffled up as the games go on. Each player has their own individual tally, making note of their partnership's winning/losing margin after each game. At the end each player will have an individual total. Some tables may have five (or perhaps even six) players - in such cases still the winners stay where they are, while if there are three on the losing side, two move up a table, and one moves down, to aid the shuffling process. Tables should be set up initially with the larger-player-number tables spread out as much as possible so that the same players don't end up in the larger tables always.

All games are played as dealt at the table. If you wish to try and balance the variance of these distributional differences, you could try a larger-scale version of Duplicate Calypso.

Calypso for Two

Kerry Handscomb (of Abstract Games magazine) has devised an interesting version of Calypso for two players, using a shortened deck, and a mechanism for player's personal trump suits to vary from trick to trick.

Read the full rules for Calypso for Two, or if you try it out, give feedback here.

Calypso Duet

Calypso Duet is a version of Calypso for two players — Calypso for two. It is essentially double-dummy Calypso, with a tiny twist. I wouldn't be surprised if others had played around with something of this nature (though I am not aware of any specific attempts), but this is my version.

As Bridge players will be familiar with, a dummy hand is a hand of cards which is visible to all. The cards do not really belong to an independent player - instead the player opposite plays both their own (secret) hand, and the dummy (being their partner). In each hand of Bridge a single hand is dummy, so that each player knows the contents of precisely two hands - their own, and that of dummy.

Double-dummy is the situation where there are two dummy hands. This means that players know the contents of three hands - the two dummies, and their own. In a game like Bridge, where all cards are dealt out, this allows players in fact to deduce all hands (the fourth hand necessarily contains all the missing cards). As such, the game turns from one of hidden information, to a game of perfect information. There is no need to deal with risk/uncertainty, as all cards are known. This takes a lot of interesting features out of the game. While double-dummy Bridge may occasionally be played (and is not completely trivial in all cases for humans), it is most often employed using computerised double-dummy solvers to aid to players get a rough sense of what sort of results might be achievable.

The situation in Calypso is different, however. As only a quarter of the cards are dealt out at a time, a player cannot fully determine the contents of the fourth (the opponent's secret hand). With perfect memory, in the fourth hand, a player certainly could, but most of us will at best be able to deduce a few cards, and perhaps the suit distribution, so there is perhaps some interest to be had in the game. Even those with perfect memories will only have to play without uncertainty a quarter of the time.

The actual rules of Calypso Duet are almost identical to Standard Calypso - the only differences lie in the setup of each hand. Players select suits by some means - one player will have the major suits (Spades and Hearts), the other the minor suits (Clubs and Diamonds). For each player, the red suits (Hearts and Diamonds) will be the trump suits of their dummy hands, whilst the black suits (Spades and Clubs) will be the trump suits for their secret hands.

Four hands are then dealt out, as usual - each player receives two distinct hands, face down. Each player then picks up one of their hands and inspects it (if you don't want to have to rue a meaningless choice, you may agree to pick up the one on the left). After inspecting the hand (but not looking at the hand remaining on the table), they must each decide if this hand will be their secret hand, or their dummy. They do so by placing the hand face down in a pile either:

Alternatively, if you are very keen that this decision be made simultaneously, you can agree some way to each note your decision, revealing after you have both decided, such as:

It shouldn't really matter, as it is unlikely your opponents decision should affect yours, but you are free to make such an agreement if you prefer the symmetry.

Once this is decided, players pick up their designated secret hand, and trickplay begins. Each hand starts with non-dealer leading a card to the first trick. Dealer then exposes their dummy, and plays a card to the trick. This is followed by non-dealer exposing their dummy, and playing from it to the trick, before finally dealer finishes the trick with a card from their hand. Play then continues through the rest of the hand following usual Calypso rules. Both dummies remain exposed throughout.

After the first hand is finished, deal switches, and the same procedure is repeated for the next hand:

There are some points to note. One is that, compared to an ordinary game of Calypso, the deal does not 'rotate' properly, nor does the order of hands remain fixed. Instead, the order of play effectively reverses each hand. For instance, if the major suits player is dealer, the order of play to the first trick of each hand is:

  1. Clubs, Hearts (dummy), Diamonds (dummy), Spades [major suits player is dealer]
  2. Spades, Diamonds (dummy), Hearts (dummy), Clubs [minor suits player is dealer]
  3. Clubs, Hearts (dummy), Diamonds (dummy), Spades [major suits player is dealer]
  4. Spades, Diamonds (dummy), Hearts (dummy), Clubs [minor suits player is dealer]

Another point to be aware of is that, if you are leading to the first trick, you have no knowledge of the cards in your dummy at the point of leading ,if you choose your initial hand as your secret hand. You only discover the contents of your dummy at the same time as your opponent, after they have played a card from their dummy to the trick. Obviously if you choose your initial hand as dummy, then when you come to lead from hand you will have seen the cards in dummy. However, you may not refer to them again until the dummy is publicly exposed.

The reason for fixing the trump suits of dummy hands, and keeping the order of play consistent (relative to dealer), is made to help players easily remember the state of the game, rather than risk getting confused about which hand has which trump suit, and trying to remember which hand is to play next.

This can be aided by the table layout. Assuming players sit opposite each other, it minimises confusion if both players keep their calypsoes of both of their suits (in-progress as well as completed) in front of themselves, rather than in a square. Additionally, players should place their dummies (once revealed) in the relative position of play. So when Clubs leads first, the dummies should be on the Clubs-player's left (and the Spades-player's right), with the Hearts dummy to the left of Clubs, and the Diamonds dummy to the left of Spades. The next hand the two dummies will be on the other sides (to the right of the Clubs player, and left of Spades).

If play is slow/interrupted, it may prove useful to have a marker of some kind (a poker chip, or coin, for example), to mark the hand who is to lead next.

Call-and-response

There is also a version of Calypso Duet called Call-and-Response. The additional feature in this version is the addition of a card exchange element, which adds an opportunity for just a little extra strategy. Play of the game is as in 'vanilla' Calypso Duet, except for a modification at the start of each hand.

When players are investigating their initial hand (and deciding whether it is secret, or dummy), they additionally select three cards from the hand, and place them face down to the side. These three cards will become part of their other (currently unseen) hand. How this then plays out depends slightly on whether you choose this (the remaining ten cards) to be your secret hand, or your dummy.

If you choose it to be your dummy, then you place the remaining (ten) cards in the usual position for dummy. You then pick up the other hand as usual (your secret hand) and, before the first trick begins, you select three cards from your hand, and add them to the dummy, shuffling them together (so as not to reveal to opponent which cards were passed once dummy is revealed). You then pick up the three cards that you set aside originally, and add them to your hand. Then the first trick can begin.

If instead you choose your intial hand as your secret hand, then the procedure is slightly different. Firstly, if you are non-dealer, you must lead from the hand of ten cards initially. For both players, as it becomes time to reveal their dummy (i.e. when dummy is about to play to the trick), you should first place down your secret hand, and pick up dummy. Select three cards from dummy, and place them into your secret hand (thus creating a full hand once more). Then pick up the three cards initially set aside, mix them into dummy, and then carry on as before (i.e. expose dummy and play a card from it to the trick).

Obviously players need not make the same choices as one another, so each follows the relevant procedure. The rest of the hand plays out as usual - this process is then repeated before the start of the other three hands.

Coöperative Calypso

An interesting change of pace you may wish to try is to play a coöperative version of the game. Rather than two teams competing against one another, the aim for all four players is to maximise the total score.

The rules of the game are identical to that of Standard Calypso, and the scoring is also identical. The only difference is that instead of each partnership adding up their scores, all four players total their score as a total for the table. Players are aiming to try and maximise this score.

It is important to note that in particular the rules on where cards go upon trick-completion are unchanged. This is what keeps the game being completely trivial — everyone is trying to arrange situations so that as few cards as possible go into the trickpiles, and that each partnership wins only cards containing their own suits before transferring the lead to the other partnership.

As usual, players are not allowed to directly communicate about their hands (I'm not certain that this would make the game completely trivial, but at the very least would probably grind it down into over-analytical). However, players are free to communicate indirectly by creating card-signalling systems. In a coöperative setting there is perhaps greater scope for signalling conventions, and it may be possible to extend signalling from the standard game to cover a wider range of settings.

Of course the downside of this version of the game is that the ending can feel a bit flat. You may be able to discuss moments in the game where in retrospect you realise you could have earned more points, but ultimately it is hard to know how well you have done as a team. There is no easy fix for this, as there is no straightforward way to tell what the maximum possible score you could have had was, with the cards dealt as they were (short of inputting the entire set of deals into some kind of quad-quadruple dummy solver).

However, as a very crude tool, I suggest the following score bands (with corresponding possible total table calypsoes) translated into 'grades' (borrowing the idea from other coöp games):

Competitive Coöperative Calypso (Duplicate Coöp)

If you find yourself in the flush position of possessing eight willing players (and as many packs of cards), then you can bring a competitive element back to Coöperative Calypso, by playing one table of four against the other.

In general the deal of the cards will play such a large role as to render it largely pointless to compare. However, if you have the patience to do so, you can arrange to have identical deals as in Duplicate Calypso, so that you can truly compare like-with-like, and any differences in the final score will be solely down to the respective card-play of each table.

With just four players, you can instead split into two tables of two. Ideally still arranging the two quad-decks identically duplicate-style, there are three options available:

If there are only two of you, you may wish to try playing quadruple-dummy coöperative against one another. Each player plays all four hands at one table, and scores are compared at the end. To stop this version being too dry and analysis-heavy, I suggest a time limit per hand. Four-and-a-half minutes per hand gives a little over five seconds on average per card, which might seem a bit generous, but also accounts for all the admin of sorting cards post-trick. If this is too luxurious, I think three minutes should be achievable. Probably a penalty of -10 points per second over time should be sufficient to stop too much dawdling.

Embers Calypso

Embers Calypso, or alternatively Calypso Continuo is a simple variant of my own invention, where the Calypso keeps smouldering along as any number of hands are played.

The aim is to try to soften some of the extremeties of distribution in the standard game (where for instance losing all four of a rank of your trump suit in the first deal can mean you are destined for no Calypsoes with three hands yet to play), and additionally to allow the game to be played to an arbitrary number of hands (so that you may continue play without needing to commit to a further four deals). Additionally, the number of duplicate decks used is only three — but see note at the end for using other numbers.

Play is for a fixed number of hands, the number of which should ideally be agreed beforehand. Four is the bare minimum, but twelve is probably a decent number - of course choose whatever suits your taste and timescale. If not agreed beforehand, players can choose whatever system they like to draw the game to a close --- ideally the number of hands played should be even, so that both partnerships have had the initial lead an equal number of times.

Cards are shuffled and dealt as in the standard game, and the first hand is played as usual - this hand is known as the fire>. Thereafter, from the second hand onwards (these are the ember hands) however, there is a procedure to follow at the end of each hand — the play during the hands themselves is no different than the standard rules. To describe, we will refer to two (face-down) piles of cards:

It should be relatively easy to distinguish the two, as there will always be significantly more cards in the green room than the sin bin, but for avoidance of confusion it is best to stack some of the cards of the sin bin perpendicularly to the remaining cards to help further distinguish the two piles.

After each hand is finished, the following procedure should be followed:

The green room is thus the set of cards from which the next hand will be dealt, while the sin bin is the set of cards that 'sit out' for a hand. Cards that end up in trickpiles won't be available for the next deal (nor of course cards that form part of in-progress Calypsoes) - but the remainder of the deck (including those won from just-completed Calypsoes) will be.

Play of the hands themselves proceeds identically to the standard game. At the end of the final deal, any in-progress Calypso cards are scored as usual at 20 apiece, along with the final set of trickpile cards. Highest-scoring partnership wins.

This form of the game changes the dynamics somewhat - depending on the length of play, scoring Calypsoes becomes even more important, as the opportunity to reach the high-scoring 1000 point third-or-subsequent Calypsoes (one might call them millenary Calypsoes) is greatly increased. Completing Calypsoes also means that cards of your trump suit will be immediately available for the next hand. Trickpile cards also become increasingly valuable as compared to in-progress Calypsoes (as the former are scored continuously, whilst the latter only scores at the end of the game), as well as potentially 'locking away' valuable opponent cards for a hand.

Playing with other number of decks

Embers Calypso can be played with more than three decks, if you so desire. Three is the minimum number, as you have

With four or more there are enough cards to play more 'fire' hands if desired - up to the number of packs minus two. So for example with six decks, you could play four fire hands (i.e. you only start the sin-bin/green-room process at the end of the fifth hand). The more packs you use, the less you know about the cards available in the current deal. With three, you could almost know the entire set in some circumstances (if you have a good memory) - if you have 48 in-progress Calypso cards, and the previous hand went all to trick-piles, the next hand will be dealt from the remaining 56 cards. In practice there will be more than this, but you should have a better idea about the distribution more often than in the standard game.

Kaiso

A game inspired by Willis' original game, in which players can collect a variety of different card sets, rather than just calypsoes, of my own invention. See Kaiso page for details.

Auction Calypso

A variant of my own in which players bid for the right to choose the trump suits in exchange for committing to winning a certain number of points. See Auction Calypso page for details.

Quasi-related games

The following games are not really Calypso variants at all, and certainly don't qualify under my proposed criteria. Nevertheless, they each share some characteristic or other with the game, and so I mention them here for those who may be interested.

As far as I am aware, unless otherwise mentioned, they were all developed independently of Calypso, and were not inspired by it in any way.

Where to play?

A game of Calypso in-play at Board Game Arena. A trick is in-progress, and each player has some cards towards their calypso. The players are North, South, East, and West.
Calypso at Board Game Arena - playable for free

If you have enough people close enough together for a game of Calypso, then why are you reading this? Just get playing! If you have made it this far into the paragraph and you are not already playing Calypso then I don't know how to help you.

If you have people to play with but are unable to meet up physically, there are a couple of online options. For a fairly 'manual' approach you can play at playingcards.io (see playingcards.io link info). You will not need accounts, but someone will need to set up the room. Additionally several things in the card-play, winning tricks, and scoring need to be taken care of manually. The other option is playing at Board Game Arena (see BGA link info). Each player needs an account, but they are free (and allow access to a nice range of other card games, as well as hundreds of board games. There is also a paid premium option to gain various benefits.). All aspects of trick-winning/card-collection/dealing etc. are handled automatically.

You can play Calypso at Board Game Arena also if you do not have enough people to play with by allowing strangers to join your table - depending on the time of day/how many people you need you may have wait a little while to find people, but there is a little pool of active players.

If you are keen instead for an in-person game but don't have the requisite numbers, there are a few places online where you might be able to find people to play with:

History of Calypso

Calypso's origins lie in Trinidad in the early 1950s. It was there, sometime before the end of 1953, that R.W. Willis invented a card game. The game was not quite Calypso as it is presented here, but a proto-version of the game. There are scant details on this version but, compared to the final Calypso rules, from Kenneth Konstam's book we can ascertain that:

Calypso it seems was named for the Trinidadian music style. Although its roots are older, the style had a 'golden era' with the first set of commercial recordings in the '20s and '30s. Calypso was relatively well-known by this point in the UK, in part thanks to the arrival of Calypsonians Lords Kitchener, Beginner, and Woodbine on the Windrush in 1948. The former performed an early version of his song 'London is the place for me' upon disembarking as captured by Pathé. Beginner was known for 'General Election' about Clement Atlee's 1950 election victory, and 'Cricket, Lovely Cricket' (Victory Calypso) commemorating the West Indies' first victory in England, in their historic 1950 tour.

There is not an awful amount of information about Mr. R.W. Willis himself - he is described as "an air-line employee" in a Look magazine article, and slightly more specifically as "executive of British Overseas Airways Corporation stationed in Trinidad" in a Sports Illustrated piece, but beyond that I have not been able to glean any detail. Having played his invented game with friends (and presumably fiddled with and refined) at home in Trinidad (still then part of the British Empire), it was on a holiday to England in October 1953 with his wife that Kenneth Konstam came to hear of his game via a mutual friend, and had an introduction arranged to try it out.

Konstam, as well as being a well-known Bridge player, worked as an executive at Thomas De La Rue, a company that had been producing playing cards since the 1820s. With Willis' blessing he developed Calypso and "bring it out in such a way that [he] thought would appeal to the card-playing public.". After some refinement, and testing with friends, Konstam tried the game on the "super critics" Norman Watson, managing director of John Waddington (noteworthy for amongst other things purchasing the game Cluedo for the company, having renamed it from 'Murder!') and chairman of De La Rue Bernard C Westall (also a Bridge player). Waddington's had taken over the printing of De La Rue's cards after factories of the latter were bombed in 1940 during the second world war , with the companies later going on to merge. Konstam felt sure that "if the game could pass these two super critics then there was at least something worth persevering with.". Evidently this went well: "...if you had seen, as I did these two high-level business executives, coats off, really getting down to arguing about and enjoying a game of Calypso for a penny-a-hundred, then you would understand why I was encouraged to believe that I was on the right track...".

In 1954 Waddington's (with De La Rue) published a boxed version of the game. Included were four packs of cards, a score-pad, a set of renounce indicators, a Calypso square, along with the 'Official Laws' of the game. These included a foreword by Ewart Kempson, who to (approximately) coïncide wrote the first book on Calypso - Kempson had worked with Waddington's and De La Rue to draft the official laws (copyrighted by those companies jointly). Kempson's claims to be the (to his knowledge) first book, although the fact that it was released 30th August, and Konstam's own book on the game, is also marked as published 'August 1954' suggests there is not much in it. Konstam's, in addition to the laws and some strategy, includes his recount of the origins of the game (from which much of the above is taken). There was at least one other edition published, with a foreword this time by Konstam himself.

With the release of the boxed set there was a promotional push in the UK in the latter half of 1954. There were adverts in various publications, particularly promoting it as a Christmas gift for that year, as well as promotional leaflets in other Waddington's games. There were also promotional events such as the game being introduced to the England men's test cricket team the night before their voyage to Australia for the '54-'55 Ashes. There is a nice additional Calypso link here, as this series (the last Ashes England would win in Australia until 1970) was commemorated by the aforementioned Calypsonian Lord Kitchener in the Ashes Calypso (listen on YouTube).

A black-and-white cartoon of four people each with a different suit on their head play a game of cards at a table.
A (digitally restored) cartoon advert that appeared in newspapers in 1955. Accompanying text:

Q: What game has four trump suits?

A: The tantalizing new game from Trinidad—CALYPSO. Give it a whirl tonight. Rules FREE where you buy playing cards. Or write Playing Cards, 420 Lexington Ave. New York 17, N. Y.

Thankfully now you can read the rules instantly - just scroll up!

In January 1955 Calypso reached the USA, having purportedly racked up close to 100,000 pre-orders at retail outlets in the fortnight ahead of its release. There was a launch event at the River Club in New York, with "calypso singers and a brief, informative lecture on the game by its obstetrician, Kenneth W. Konstam". Konstam had been part of the British team which won the Bermuda Bowl in 9th-14th January that year, and continued on in the USA with an "unrelenting promotion program" including making "appearances in St. Louis stores and ... going to Miami to play bridge and push calypso". There were also various tie-ins: a "calypso cocktail (two drinks and you lose your meter)" whose recipe seem to be lost to time, and a song "I Love Calypso" which "[came] up from the Caribbean". There is a song copyrighted 20th April 1957 by (words and music) Tom Dempsey & Lou E. Zoeller, who have collaborated elsewhere and co-wrote 'Let Your Hair Down, Baby' with Louis Jordan some ten years previously, but this does seem to be a little late compared with the time of the January 1955 article in which it is mentioned, so may well be a coïncidentally-titled, unrelated song - after all the title is not the craziest thing to come up with (about the music genre itself, for instance).

Along with the boxed set and promotional events, several new books on Calypso came about from various America-based Bridge players - Jo Culbertson, Alfred Sheinwold, and John Crawford all published books in the first half of the year, with Geoffrey Mott-Smith penning one in the latter half. Charles Goren also wrote a series of newspaper articles on Calypso in July, which could, taken together, constitute something of a booklet.

However after this initial flurry of activity, interest in Calypso appeared to wane. A book by Oswald Jacoby failed to materialise, and mentions in newspapers and magazines seem to disappear - already in the UK there is little if anything that I have discovered after 1954, and similarly in the USA after 1955. While some enthusiasts continued to play (apparently until recently in Massachussetts, USA), the game largely faded out of the public consciousness, appearing only in a few game compendia — notably by Peter Arnold and David Parlett which stopped it fading into total obscurity as the years rolled by. Parlett also created a page on the game at some point before May '09 which allowed for greater discoverability. It seems unlikely there will be a huge resurgence, but the game does seem to still attract a small number of enthusiasts, who may manage to coalesce to some level of organised play.

Calypso resources and references

Calypso in print

There are a few books dedicated to Calypso, all from the time when it was fresh and new, 1954-55 (unless there are any more recent that I have missed!). They are written exclusively by well-known Bridge players of the time:

  • Calypso Complete with the official rules - Ewart Kempson (Rockliff, 1954) [ Calypso at WorldCat ]

    This is the (self-proclaimed) first book written on Calypso (appearing presumably therefore no later than August), by early Contract Bridge player and editor of Bridge Magazine Captain Ewart Kempson. It covers rules, a little strategy, as well as 'solo' Calypso and the 'official' rules. Around a quarter of the book is made up of a full example game, with discussion on the reasoning for various plays.

  • How to play Calypso the new british card game - Kenneth Konstam (Hodder & Stoughton, August 1954) [ How to play Calypso at WorldCat ]

    This book shortly followed Kempson's, written by Calypso 'developer'/promoter and Bermuda-Bowl-winning Bridge player and card-game manufacturer Kenneth Konstam (see also this English Bridge Union bio). Along with the 'The Laws of "Calypso"', there is some discussion around tactical elements of the game, as well as rules for a duplicate form of the game.

  • Calypso The four-trump game - Jo Culbertson (John C Winston Company, 1955) [ Calypso at WorldCat , as well as this additional WorldCat entry.]

    This book by Jo Culbertson marked (along with the books by Sheinwold and Crawford) the introduction of the game to American audiences. Having heard of the game from friends who visited England in late summer 1954, Culbertson learned the details via the books by Kempson and Konstam, and after analysing the game with the aid of "two of [her] closest associates" (Geoffrey Mott-Smith and Alphonse Moyse, Jr, who also functioned as editors of the book) put together this text. Along with the rules, there is a nice amount of detail discussing tactics, and a section of "Illustrative deals" with a nice selection of scenario hands highlighting different aspects of the game.

  • Winning Calypso - Alfred Sheinwold (Sterling, 1955) [ Winning Calypso at WorldCat .]
    Cover of the book 'Winning Calypso'. It is solid red, with a selection of face-up playing cards drawn along the right-hand-side and bottom. The text reads (punctuation added): 'Winning Calypso, By Alfred Sheinwold, Famous Card Expert. Including official laws of this new game. $1.'
    Front cover of Winning Calypso, digitally enhanced

    Presumably before this book by American Bridge player Alfred Sheinwold all games of Calypso ended in ties, but at last this book unlocked the secrets to allow players to win at the game.

    This book takes a unique approach to introducing the game - the rules are described in a quasi-narrative style of 'observing a game' (along with the official rules with commentary at the back). From the chapter WE WATCH A GAME, we have for example in the section THE FIRST TRICK this introduction to renounce indicators: "In Calypso, a player must follow the suit that is led, if he is able. If he cannot follow suit, he may discard any other card, or he may play one of his trump suit. In this case, South chose to play a trump---spades being his trump suit---and he won the trick. As South reaches for the trick, West quickly asks: "No hearts?" By way of answer, South fumbles among four queer little slips of paper that are on the table in front of him, and then he turns one of them face up. It says: [an image of a suit indicator] THE SPADE PLAYER HAS NOT FOLLOWED SUIT TO ♥"

    As well as rules and an example game, there are an interesting variety of tactical nuggets. Additionally, Sheinwold gives rules for versions playable by five, six or more, as well as his own take on three-handed Calypso (see the variants section for details).

  • Calypso how to play and win the fascinating new card game - John R. Crawford (Doubleday, 1955) [ Calypso at the US Library of Congress .]

    A book written by Bridge and Backgammon player John R. Crawford (who Backgammon players will know from the 'Crawford rule'), who also penned an article for Look magazine (the US one) to promote the game. So far I have been unable to ascertain any information about the contents of the book, although one can reasonably assume a similar format to the others.

  • How to win at calypso - Geoffrey Mott-Smith (Grosset & Dunlap, 1955) [ How to win at calypso at the WorldCat .]

    A slightly later entry (appearing in the second half of 1955), this book by Geoffrey Mott-Smith (who consulted on and co-edited Culbertson's book) is again focused not just on playing, but on winning. Another whose contents I am not currently certain of.

  • ??? - Oswald Jacoby (???, 1955?)

    In the midst of a series of newspaper columns on Calypso, Charles Goren, before detailing what to do in certain irregular circumstances, says "... I have selected some of the rules for iregularities from the new Calypso book by Oswald Jacoby." (the famous bridge player, certainly known to most players at the very least due to his eponymous transfers). Additionally, in Goren's introduction to the series, he says "As my old friend Oswald Jacoby explains in his new book, Calypso is a fine blend of skill and luck, easy to learn, and develops enough excitement to keep you on the edge of your seat." However, I am yet to find any other references to such a book, let alone any listings for the book in any catalogues or the like. As additionally it does not seem to appear in US copyright registrations, I strongly suspect this book never ended up being published, if indeed it was ever written, or just ended up languishing at the 'concept'/'sketch' stage. Had it ever come to fruition, likely titles would have been "Oswald Jacoby on Calypso", "Oswald Jacoby's Complete Calypso", or perhaps "How to win at Calypso" (although perhaps this would be avoided so as not to clash with Mott-Smith's offering). Goren could, of course, have been referring to one of the other books already mentioned here, with which Jacoby had some sort of involvement, such as perhaps that of his sometime-of-the-era Bridge partner Sheinwold, although this seems a bit odd. If anyone has any more clues in this mystery to please get in touch.

Additionally, Calypso has appeared in several game compendiums over the years, including (non-exhaustively):

Calypso was featured in a few magazines and newspapers in its brief heyday. Here are a few noteworthy entries:

  • Newsweek (US Edition), Volume 44 Iss 21 (1954-11-22) p.104

    A small preview piece with a broad overview of the game - whetting appetites ahead of Calypso's USA debut the following January. Slightly on the fence about its future: "Calypso is the first successful card game to appear since Canasta shook it's way up from Uruguay about seven years ago. ... Orthodox American card players stoutly insist that, despite Calypso's threat, contract bridge, rummy, poker, and pinochle are not in danger.".

    Read this Newsweek article at archive.org

  • Sports Illustrated, Volume 2 Issue 5 (1955-01-31) p.17

    A nice article with a lot of flavour.

    Read this Sports Illustrated article at archive.org

  • Look magazine, Volume 19 Issue 4 (1955-02-22) p.16

    An article by John Crawford (who also wrote a book on Calypso), mainly consisting of an explanation of the rules, along with John R. Crawford's ten hints to help you win (which are a pretty good strategic starting point). Features a photo of Buff Cobb 'juggling' cards over a Calypso square - several other photos were also shot, but just the one appears here.

    Read this Look magazine article at archive.org

  • The Atlanta Constitution (and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), (1955-07-10:1955-07-22) Charles Goren

    American Bridge player Charles Goren wrote a twelve-part series of articles on Calypso in The Atlanta Constitution (where he also wrote the Bridge column), which includes several details / observations which I have not found in any of the other presentations. It is effectively a mini-serialised book - each day covering a different aspect of the game. Ther initial entry I have not been able to get access to - the Sunday edition I believe at this time ran as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which does not seem to be digitised freely, so I am not certain of the contents of the initial special Sunday launch edition, although I have managed to find the text in a syndicated edition elsewhere (although I am not sure from which paper). It is likely this appeared in several papers, as seemed to be common at the time.

    • I - (launch edition - title unknown) (1955-07-10, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution). I have only been able to find the text of a syndicated version of this entry. A brief introduction, and an overview of the rules.
    • II - Winning Tricks Vital; Here's How To Do It (1955-07-11: Vol. 88 Iss. 21). Basic outline on how tricks play in regards to collecting cards for Calypsoes. [Read article II on archive.org]
    • III - Rule on Trick Winning (1955-07-12: Vol. 88 Iss. 22). Very clear from the title - this explains the rule governing which card wins a trick. [Read article III on archive.org]
    • IV - Tips on Opening Leads (1955-07-13: Vol. 88 Iss. 23). Another self-explanatory title - basic advice on choosing what to lead at the start of a hand. [Read article IV on archive.org]
    • V - Concentrate On Taking Most Tricks (1955-07-14: Vol. 88 Iss. 24). Some discussion about the relative value of different cards, and making a case for trying to win tricks as the priority, ahead of worrying about what cards they contain. [Read article V on archive.org]
    • VI - Irregularities Covered by Rule Book (1955-07-15: Vol. 88 Iss. 25). Rules to handle a few irregularities: 'Deal Out of Turn', 'Incorrect Last Deal', and 'Lead Out of Turn' - all selected from the mysterious book by Oswald Jacoby. [Read article VI on archive.org]
    • VII - Good Style Serves as Your Guide (1955-07-16: Vol. 88 Iss. 26). Advice 'on developing a good general style', mostly again around general rules for which suits to play. [Read article VII on archive.org]
    • VIII - Hang Onto Some Trumps To Top Short Suit Lead (1955-07-18: Vol. 88 Iss. 27) More on leading, mainly around when (or not) to lead your own suit. [Read article VIII on archive.org]
    • IX - Here're Examples Of Opening Leads (1955-07-19: Vol. 88 Iss. 28). Three example hands, with advice on what to lead if opening, and why. [Read article IX on archive.org]
    • X - Additional Examples Of Good Leads (1955-07-20: Vol. 88 Iss. 29). Three more hand + lead examples, as on the previous day. [Read article X on archive.org]
    • XI - Hints Listed For Calypso Beginners (1955-07-21: Vol. 88 Iss. 30). A few general strategy pointers, and brief rules for three, five, and six to play. [Read article XI on archive.org]
    • XII - Keep Track Of Player's Trump Suit (1955-07-22: Vol. 88 Iss. 31) Advice on keeping track of played cards. [Read article XII on archive.org]

    Some trailers for this series appeared in the 5th of July and the 8th of July editions.

  • Bradford Observer, 15th September 1954

    A picture of England Men's cricket test captain and legendary batter Len Hutton and and wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans seated at a table, being taught Calypso by a Mr. A.P. Norman (about whom I have been able to glean no further information). Observing the demonstration are other members of the test team Tom Graveney, Brian Statham, Keith Andrew, Peter Loader, and Vic Wilson. This was in a Paddington hotel on the eve of their departure for the '54-55 Ashes. I am not aware of any of these cricketers developing any further interest in Calypso.

  • Lincoln Star, 23rd November 1954 Stan Delaplane (via McNaught syndicate)

    As part of his Postcard series of humorous travel columns, American travel writer Stan Delaplane wrote this entry on Calypso's forthcoming arrival to the USA ("Come the New Year, the British will unloose on us a game called Calypso."). He amusingly describes his ineptitude (and uninterest) at cards, and decries the idea of the game being imported, describing bringing Calypso to the USA as "...the slyest bit of psychological warfare since they [the British] burned Washington.". He closes with "I don't know what Mr. Churchill is thinking about. Letting loose this Calypso craze upon his American cousins. This is the wrong kind of hands across the sea.".

    Read this Postcard article at archive.org

A multi-colour cartoon of four people each with a different suit on their head play a game of cards at a table.
A cartoon of a game of Calypso. Another alternate-colour version of the original 1950's advert.

Additionally here is an entirely non-exhaustive list of other places where it is referenced, although most of these are adverts or price-lists. Only included to get a sense of timings/prevalence.

Contact

Feel free to get in touch if you wish! This can be for any reason, including but not limited to:

I can be reached on these matters and more by emailing: calypso 'AT' repiqued-interests.co.uk