Jan Ken Po

There are several somewhat related trick-taking card games that go by the name Jan Ken Po, all originating in the United States of America. They are all based around the concept of the well-known hand game 'Paper, scissors, stone', or 'Rock, paper, scissors', the name of the game in Japanese being 'Janken'.

They were originally played with (now long out-of-print) proprietary card decks. However they are all easily playable with a standard 52-card deck — I will describe the game in these terms, translating to originals to show the correspondence. Where there are gaps in the rules I will fill them in a way that seems reasonable, and shall make it clear when this is happening.

Mostly Minus Jan Ken Po

This game is the version published by West Coast Games (of Pasadena, California). It is credited to 'A. C. Braden', or in some places 'A. Claude Braden'. It seems likely that this is the same person as well-known Pasadena entrepeneur Arthur Claude Braden.

I have dubbed it the mostly minus version due to its association with the West Coast of the USA, and to contrast it with the original East Coast Parker version.

As you will no doubt have many, many occasions to refer to this game, you may find the abbreviation 'MMJKP' to be a great time-saver.

The deck

The original deck was made of 52 cards in four suits - described in the rules (with their corresponding 'translations') as Jan, Ken, Po, and Kaji. Each suit has thirteen cards, numbered 1-13. Those of you paying especially close attention will see how easily this will allowed us to map it to a standard deck.

In the rules I shall refer to the standard English suits. But for reference, for anyone wishing to compare with the original rules, the mapping I have chosen is:

The translations of the suits are as stated in the rules — these do not appear to be correct, but result from some confusion about the Japanese game. For more details on this see a little discussion around the history of this game.

Original deck description

In the original deck each card has an index for the rank, below which there is a suit symbol, and then the name of the suit in a Wonton font. The cards 1-11 all have a single large suit symbol in the centre of the card. The 12 and 13 cards each have a picture of a figure (reversible), themed to the suit. The image is the same for the 12 and 13 of each suit.

The suit symbols appear as:

The card-backs are red, with a black snow-capped mountain at the bottom, and two white birds (appearing somewhat goose-like) flying together above.

Rules

The main version of the game is for four players. There are versions for two to six also — these will be described in reference to the four-player version, as in the original set of rules, at the end.

It is a trick-taking card game for four, with each player playing for themselves, although alliances may be in effect from hand to hand.

The deck

The game is played with a standard 52-card deck. Cards in each suit rank from King (high) down to Ace (low) with standard ordering, i.e. King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, Ace.

The relative ranking of suits depends on which suit is designated as trump for a given hand. Throughout the game ranking is based on the relative cycle of the three non-Clubs suits (Clubs playing a special role in the game): Diamonds is higher than Spades is higher than Hearts is higher than Diamonds is higher than Spades...

... > ♦ > ♠ > ♥ > ♦ > ♠ > ♥ > ...

The chosen trump suit is always the highest. If Diamonds, Spades, or Hearts are trumps, then the second-highest suit is always Clubs. The order of the remaining two is based on the relative ranking in the cycle — the third-highest suit is the one beaten by the trump suit in the cycle, and the lowest rank suit is the one below that. If Clubs are trumps, then there is not a fixed hierarchy of the remaining suits. This situation will be clarified below.

Concretely, the absolute hierarchy for when Clubs are not trumps are given in the following table:

Trump suit Highest — — Lowest
♦ ♦ ♣ ♠ ♥
♠ ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦
♥ ♥ ♣ ♦ ♠

When Clubs is trumps, the suit ranking depends on the order the cards are played, following the cycle. So a Heart played is beaten by a Spade but not a Diamond, a Spade is beaten by a Diamond but not a Heart, etc.

The suit cycle

It can be tricky to remember the order of suits in the cycle. Here the original deck really helps - the suits of Rock/Scissors/Paper (respectively Jan/Ken/Po) make this pretty intuitive. Nevertheless, there some things that can help.

The suit cycle is the same as that in Havilering, if we remove Clubs from the cycle. It also manifests differently, but if you need to recall in-game, and are familiar with Havilering, this may help.

The cycle in Havilering is the same as hierarchies present in many other games (in some form or other) wrapped around, including Bridge, Skat, Preference and 500. So for instance, if you are familiar with Skat, if Hearts are trumps, you can recall that Diamonds is the suit below Hearts, and so must be third in the suit hierarchy (Clubs being second always when not trumps). Thus Spades is lowest. Leaving the hierarchy (high-low) Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades.

Another option is to think of it in terms similar to how one remembers the cycle in rock-paper-scissors:

If you are mnemonically-minded, maybe remember 'Dish Beats!'. This translates to the suit abbreviations 'DSH' being in decreasing order, i.e. each suit beats the subsequent one (wrapping around).

Failing these (or in addition), it may be useful, particular when learning the game, to write this cycle down for players to refer to. Or perhaps using some Jacks Havel instead as an aide memoire.

The deal

Players draw cards at random to determine the first dealer, highest-ranked card winning the deal. If there is a tie, the tieing players re-draw until it is resolved.

Right of dealer cuts the deck, and then thirteen cards are dealt to each player, one at a time going round the players in turn clockwise, beginning with left of the dealer (a very standard deal). Once all cards are dealt, players may inspect their hands.

It is not specified in the original rules, but it is reasonable to assume that the role of dealer passes to the left after each hand.

The auction

Left of dealer opens the bidding, followed by the player to their left, continuing round finally to the dealer. Each player only has a single opportunity to bid. A bid is simply a single number, from one to six, representing the number of tricks above five (called a 'book') that they undertake to make. As only a single player wins the bidding, we can infer that each bid must be higher than the last.

It is not specified in the original rules, but it seems likely that passes are legal. This of course brings up the potential for hands to be 'passed out'. Owing to other similarities in the game, we follow the Bid Whist approach, so that if the first three bids are passes, dealer is obligated to bid.

The highest bidder (i.e. the last player to make a non-pass bid) will be the declarer for that hand.

Discarding, selecting trumps

Once the auction is done, every player places two cards from their hands face down as discards, leaving them with eleven cards apiece. They remain face down on the table, and from this point on must not be inspected. They take no further part in the hand.

After each player has discarded, declarer announces one of the four suits as trumps for the hand.

Finding a partner

Declarer has the option of playing alone against the other three, or to play with a partner. If wishing to play alone, they state so, and the play of the hand begins.

If they wish to play with a partner, they name any card of the deck. The player holding that card in their hand must reveal themselves, and becomes declarer's partner.

If declarer calls a card and no player reveals themselves (because the called card has been discarded), declarer has the option once more to either play the hand alone, or call another card in the same fashion.

The original rules do not specify what happens if declarer calls a second card, and this too has been discarded. I suggest that in such a situation declarer is forced to play the hand solo (otherwise this process could continue for some time — at any rate they have gleaned some useful information about the lay of cards. This is a risk that players must take when bidding).

Also not specified is whether or not it is legal to call a card that declarer holds, or has discarded. While at first glance this may seem to be a pointless action, it does lend a possibility to allow players to bluff, by pretending they do not have a particular card. While the tactical scope for this is probably pretty limited, it still seems interesting enough to allow this play, so I suggest allowing its legality.

Players remain seated in the same order regardless of whether or not declarer plays with a partner, and the order of play is not affected by this. To make the contract the declarer simply needs to make the number of tricks specified, counting tricks won by themselves and partner, taken together.

Play

Declarer leads to the first trick, with play following to the left. It doesn't actually specify in the original rules, but we can assume that thereafter the winner of a trick leads to the next, as in nearly all such games. After winning a trick, a player from the side winning it gathers the cards together and lays them face-down next to them. The rules are very clear that there is no inspection of previous tricks — once gathered up, as soon as the player has stopped touching the cards, they may not be inspected again unless to check for a revoke. They should be arranged so that the number won by each team can be easily seen.

The rules of trick-play are a little unusual. To help clarify I am going to introduce a concept of my own not mentioned in the original rules. This is the concept of the active suit. There is a single active suit at any time while a trick is in play.

Leading to a trick, a player may play any card they hold. The suit of the card they play becomes the active suit. Any player playing later to the trick must play a card of the current active suit if possible. For the purposes of this game, this is what we will refer to as following suit. If they do not have any cards of the active suit, they may play any card.

A player who does not follow suit to a trick (because they have no cards of that suit) will end up doing one of two things:

Here 'higher' and 'lower' are in reference to the active suit.

If Diamonds, Spades, or Hearts are trumps there is a complete hierarchy of suits, and so the trick-winning condition is simple: the trick is won by the highest-ranked card of the highest-ranked suit. If Clubs are trumps then it is a bit more complex. Any Club beats any non-Club (because it is trump!), but among the remaining three suits it depends on the order played — playing a card of the higher suit puts it in position to win the trick, but playing the lower suit does nothing. To put it another way, the highest ranked card of the active suit at the end of the trick wins it. This allows the possibility of winning a trick by playing a lower card of the suit led, as we shall see in one of the example tricks.

This is probably best elucidated by means of examples. In each example trick North (N) leads.

Example Trump suit N E S W Remarks
Original rules example 1 ♦ T♥ Q♥ 8♠ 5♦ West wins. We know that South must be void in Hearts, and West void in Spades. After South played, Spades became the active suit. Note that West may well have Hearts - when they came to play their card Spades was the active suit, so dictates what they were obligated to follow to.
Original rules example 2 ♥ K♠ 5♦ T♣ A♥ West wins. East is void in Spades, and playing a Diamond, sets the active suit as Diamonds. South is void in Diamonds (but may have Spades), and plays a Club (active suit now Clubs). Finally West is void in Clubs (but may have Spades or Diamonds), and wins the trick with the lowest trump.
Original rules example 3 ♠ K♦ 9♥ T♠ Q♠ West wins, by playing a higher trump than South. East is void in Diamonds, and South is void in Hearts. We cannot infer anything further.
Original rules example 4 ♣ Q♥ T♠ Q♦ 2♥ West wins, despite playing a lower Heart than North. Each player played a higher suit than the preceding suit, and so set a new active suit. Each card beats the previous winner, and so the last played wins. East is void in Hearts, South is void in Spades, and West is void in Diamonds.
Original rules example 4* (previous trick with E/S swapped) ♣ Q♥ Q♦ T♠ 2♥ South wins in this case. East plays a lower suit than North, and so is discarding. South players a higher suit than the active suit (which is still Hearts), and West also plays a lower suit (as active suit now Spades). East and South are void in Hearts, and West is void in Spades.

Play continues until all eleven tricks have been played, at which point the hand is scored.

Scoring

The originally written rules are not completely clear on scoring, but I believe the following is probably the correct interpretation.

For a successful contract, declarer's team scores. For the number of tricks bid (i.e. the number of tricks in excess of the 'book' (five tricks)), they score 5 apiece if declarer plays with a partner, or 10 apiece if playing solo. For any tricks taken above the number contracted for (overtricks), they score 10 apiece if playing with partner, or 15 if solo.

If they fail to succeed in taking the number of tricks bid, players not on declarer's team score. For each trick under the amount bid they score 10 if declarer played with a partner, or 20 if declarer played alone.

Let's look at some examples to help clarify:

Slams

There are bonus scores available if declarer's side makes at least ten of the eleven tricks. Confusingly though, there is a discrepancy in the original rules — there are two quite different scoring schedules between the rules booklet and the reference card (worth noting that the reference card also scores overtricks at the same rate as contracted tricks above the book). I will be using the (more conservative) scores from the booklet.

If declarer's side takes ten of the eleven tricks, there is a bonus score called a Shoyo (translated in the rules as gift or prize) — they each score a bonus of 15 points (on top of the points scored as above for the tricks themselves). If they take all eleven, the bonus is called a Zensho (for which there is no translation given, but appears to mean 'complete book'), and each player on declarer's side scores 30.

For reference, the scoring schedule on the reference card gives the bonuses for Shoyo and Zensho as 40 and 60 respectively. With the trick points as well, these higher scores mean a Zensho pretty much finishes the game then and there.

Finishing the game

The original rules simply state that the game consists of 100 points. So we can take it to say that as soon as some player reaches or passes 100 points, the game finishes, and the player with the highest score wins.

If two or more players are tieing at this stage (there could be up to three such players), then the game is a tie. If this is unsatisfactory, then play continues until, after some hand, a single player has a score greater than that of the other three, at which time they become the winner.

Playing with other numbers

MMJKP for two

To play with two, remove all cards of rank Ace-5 to leave a 32-card deck. If you already have a 32-card deck (say for Piquet, or Skat), then this will suffice — Aces will take the place of the 6's as the lowest-ranking card.

Each player is dealt thirteen cards, with the remaining six being put face-down on the table and taking no part in the remainder of the hand. Everything else is the same as in the four-handed game.

MMJKP for three

Remove all the Ace-3 cards, and a single 4 (I suggest Clubs for symmetry reasons), leaving a 39-card deck. Players receive 13 cards each.

The difference here is that a 'book' consistutes only four tricks, so that the lowest bid of '1' is a contract to make only five tricks. Everything else is the same as the two-handed game (presumably meaning no calling a partner, which would probably make things too easy).

MMJKP for five

Play with a full deck. Each player receives 10-card hands — the remaining two are placed face down on the table as the Neko (translated as 'kitty'). After bidding, declarer takes the Neko into their hand, and discards two face-down in its place (as in e.g. Skat). Bidding, calling a partner, play, and scoring are all as in the four-player game, with the only exception being a book is once again only four cards.

It is not specified in the original rules whether or not players discard two cards in this version — a literal reading of the rules would perhaps suggest not, if it suggests either possibility. However, I suggest that this feature remains, which ensures that the minimum bid of '1' (i.e. to take five tricks) is an undertaking to take more than half of the available tricks (rather than it being precisely half, as would be the case with no discards).

MMJKP for six

As the five-handed game, except players receive 8-card hands, the Neko is four cards, and the book is three tricks.

As for five, although not specified, I suggest playing with each player discarding two.

Summary table

Number of players Cards removed Number of cards dealt per person Call a partner? Size of Book Size of Neko
2 A,2,3,4,5 (all suits) 13 No 5 -
3 A,2,3 (all suits), 4♣ 13 No 4 -
4 - 13 Yes 5 -
5 - 10 Yes 4 2
6 - 8 Yes 3 4