The air hung thick with smoke, as I glaced at my only
remaining opponent.
The stakes in this hand had gotten high enough to
drive out the other three players
at the table. With around 50 in the hand pot and over
200 in the Sabacc pot,
the tension filled the room.
I was holding the two of coins, the nine of sabers and
the Queen of air and darkness; for
a hand total of 9. Not good.
My opponent took a last look at his hand, and turned
to the dealer."I'll take one"
The dealer shot him a card and then he looked to
me.
I tossed the Queen down, "Switch".
I drew the
three of sabers.
"No bet." I said.
"I call", my opponent said with a smile.
As he said that, the cards began to shift. He looked
at his cards and lost his smile for a
moment, but it returned, even larger. He slapped his
cards down on the table with a shout.
"SABACC!!"
There it was, a score of 23. A pure Sabacc.
I looked at my cards, and casually laid them on the
table as my opponent reached for the
chips in the middle. My nine had shifted and become
an Idiot.
"Idiot's Array", I said with just the smallest
smirk.
My opponent lost his grin. "DAMN
IT GREMLIN!!"
Did the scene above take place in a Star Wars novel,
movie, or even a TV parody? Nope. It
took place in my dining room one Friday
night.
That's right. My friends and I were playing
a game of Sabacc, which Han and Lando loved so
much.
"But how?" you ask. Simple. We know the rules and
we've made the deck.
Want to learn?
That's simple too. I can teach you everything you
need to know. How to make the deck, the rules, and
the rule
variants; everything.
Let's talk Sabacc
Sabacc may sound complicated at first glance, but in
reality it's very simple. It's a lot like Blackjack,
in that you just need to do some simple math to know
how strong your hand is. No flushes, straights, or
three of a kind here. Just the numers -23 to +23. On
the other hand, it's a lot like poker
with the betting, and raising, and bluffing. On the
third hand, it's a lot like roulette in that your
cards can change
at any given moment whether you want them to or not.
On the forth hand, (hey, it's sci-fi, I can have four
hands
if I want to) it's unlike all three of those games
because it has two pots.
Okay, maybe it is a little complicated, so I'll go
slow.
Let's look at the basics first. Sabacc, for those who
don't know is centered on the number 23.
This 23 can be positive or negative. (Positive is
better)
Like most card games, you only need two people to
play, but you can have up to eight.
I've found, that five is just about perfect.
1) The
game begins with each player putting in
thier ante of at least 3 credits. (I'll go over ante's
and betting more in just a bit)
2) The dealer then gives each player one to three
cards, dealing clockwise around the table.
Each player gets the same number of cards, but the
number of initial cards is simply a matter
of "house rules". The initial hand size is
established prior to the game begining and remains the
same
throughout play.
3) Also going clockwise, each player then decides if
they wish to place a bet. Once this
is done, each player chooses if they want to "Draw",
"Stand", or "Switch".
Standing is a pretty common place term, so I'll skip
over and explain "draws" and a "Switch".
Unlike Poker, when you draw you do not discard. You
just "Draw" one (and only one) card, in hopes of
improving your hand. If a player wishes to "Switch",
he or she may discard one (and only one) card per turn
and get a new one.
This switching is very important and at the same time
very dangerous. If you get a bad switch, you can
hurt yourself terribly. You'll see why, when I
explain the deck.
4) Play continues like this for at least four turns.
You can not "Call" until the fifth turn.
5) When the hand is called, the player with the hand
closest to 23, wins the hand pot.
Any player who "Bombs out" must match the ante or the
hand pot,
(Again, this is desided before hand) credit for
credit,
and place it in the "Sabacc Pot". A player 'Bombs out'
by holding a hand score of more than 23, less than -23
or a dead 0. This
is where the second pot, the "Sabacc Pot" comes in.
In order to win the Sabacc Pot, a player must have one
of three
hands. These hands are a 'Pure Sabacc' of +23, a
'Tainted Sabacc' of -23
or the 'Idiot's Array'. **The Idiot's Array is a
special winning hand that consists of the Idiot card,
a two of any suit and a three of any suit. It's a
literal 23 with card values of 0-2-3.**
Each one of these hands holds a place in the 'Winning
Routes'. A tainted Sabacc is the lowest of
the winners. It is beaten by a Pure Sabacc, witch in
turn is beaten by the Idiot's Array. There is nothing
higher than the idiots array in any game variant of
Sabacc.
If any player wins in this way, they win both the hand
pot and the Sabacc pot.
6) Ante/Betting: The ante and betting both go by 3's.
The initial ante is three, and may be raised by the
dealer each hand.
This raise must go by 3. No more, no less. So the
initial ante may be three, but the next hand may have
an ante of six. The ante can never
be lowered. Once it reaches six, nine, twelve, or
whatever, it can never be lower than the hand
before.
The same principle applies to betting. Each bet or
raise must be made in multiples of three. "I bet
three", "I see that and raise three.", "I see that and
raise six.", "I call".
7) The Sabacc Shift: At any given time, one of your
cards may be taken from you and replaced by a random
card from another player's hand.
This is in effect an involuntary "Switch". When
playing against a Computer, this switch may take place
at any time, but when playing at home with
friends, the easiest way to determine a switch is to
roll a die at the end of each Draw phase. (ie. if you
use a regular six sided die, a shift happens on a roll
of 1 or 2).
To perform a switch, each player holds their cards
face down in front of the player to their right. That
player then takes a card at random from their
opponents hand and adds it
to their own.
8) The Deck: The Sabacc deck consists of 76 cards.
Sixty of these cards are the 1 thru eleven, commander,
Mistress, Master and ace of four suits.
These suits are Sabers, Flasks, Coins, and Staves.
The other sixteen cards are face cards. Fourteen have
negative values and two have no value.
Lets take a brief look at these cards. There are two
of each in the deck.
- The Idiot = 0
- The queen of Air and Darkness = -2
- Endurance = -8
- Balance = -11
- Demise = -13
- Moderation= -14
- The Evil onfiltered= -15
- The Star = -17
Alright, I hope you've soaked in enough to play,
because here we go. Click the "Place Bet"
button below, then hit "New hand", then take it from
there. You'll get the hang of it.
The open space next to "Call" tells you if you have
any cards to make an Idiot's Array.
One final tip;
pay attention to the "Active Card" slot. This is
where you choose which card you wish to
"Switch" on the current turn.
Next month, I'll give you some instuctions on how to
create a Sabacc Deck you can use at home
with friends, and move on to the next game in the line
up? What is it? Come back in 30 days and find out.
