Cucumber (1970)

From Dave Parlett's The Penguin Book of Card Games: Called Gurka in Swedish and Ogórek in Polish, this Baltic gambling game may be played for either money or for a simple point-score. Each player is dealt six cards, ranking upwards 23456789TJQKA. The aim is to avoid taking the last trick. Each trick is led by the winner of the previous trick (the first trick is led by the player to the dealer's left). Each in turn must then play a card equal to or higher in rank than the previous card played. If they cannot, they then must play their lowest card. Whoever plays the highest card, or the last played if equally high, wins the trick. Whoever wins the last trick scores penalty points equal to the face value of the card they won the trick with (as does anyone who played a card of the same rank), counting Ace 14, King 13, Queen 12, and Jack 11. A player reaching 30 points is a "cucumber" and drops out of the game.