Losing Lodam is an historical English card game for three or more players. It is a 'negative' game like Hearts whereby the aim is to avoid taking tricks with certain cards known as ''loaders''.
Names
The game is variously called Lodam, Loadam, Losing Lodam, Losing Lodum, Loosing-Lodam, Loosing Loadem, Losing Loadum or At Losing, Load Him.
History
The earliest English record dates to 1591 where the game is referred to as "Lodam", but the only description appears in Francis Willughby's 1665 book, ''A Volume of Plaies''. It may be the game listed by Rabelais as ''coquinbert qui gaigne perd'' in 1534, although ''Conquinbert'' is later equated to
Reversis
Reversis, or more rarely, Réversi, is a very old trick-taking card game of the Hearts group whose origin is supposed to be Italian, transformed into Spain and then in France. It is considered one of the two probable ancestors of Hearts, Black La ...
, another negative game.
It is an early example of a game using a form of the Ace-Ten scoring system, albeit in a negative way, and the only English Ace-Ten game.
Rules
The following rules are based on Willughby:
Cards
A
standard 52-card pack
The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. In English-speaking countries it is the only traditional pack used for playing cards; in many countries of the world, however, it is used ...
is used with Aces ranking high. The aim is to avoid taking tricks with certain cards known as ''loaders'' which have various penalty point values. These are the
Ace
An ace is a playing card, Dice, die or domino with a single Pip (counting), pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit (cards), suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large a ...
- 11, Ten - 10,
King
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
- 3,
Queen
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
non-counter
The following is a glossary
A glossary (from grc, γλῶσσα, ''glossa''; language, speech, wording) also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of Term (language), terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the defi ...
s.
Preliminaries
At the outset, players receive 3 gaming counters each. When a player goes out, he loses a counter and once he has lost all three, he is out of the game.
Players ante an agree stake and the last player in the game sweeps the pool.
Deal and play are clockwise. The cards are dealt out with everyone receiving the same number of cards, any left over being put aside, face down, as a
talon
Talon or talons may refer to:
Science and technology
* Talon (anatomy), the claw of a bird of prey
* Brodifacoum, a rodenticide, also known as the brand Talon
* TALON (database), a database maintained by the US Air Force
* Talon, an anti-vehicle- ...
.
Play
Eldest hand
Card players are those participating in a card game. Various names are given to card players based on their role or position.
Position
Games of Anglo-American origin
In games of Anglo-American origin played in English-speaking countries, ...
leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if able; otherwise may
renounce {{Short pages monitor Loadum, the Client's Game."''Stationer's Company Almanac'' (1719), p. 7, cited by Apperson (1884), p. 524.
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
* Apperson, George L. (1884). "Lodam" in ''Notes and Queries'', No. 261, 27 December 1884.
* Willughby, Francis (1665). ''A Volume of Plaies'', (ms.) published as ''Francis Willughby's Book of Games'' by David Cram and Jeffrey L. Forgeng (2003). Oxford: Routledge.
pagat.com Pagat.com is a website containing rules to hundreds of card games from all over the world. Maintained by John McLeod, it contains information for traditional, commercial, and newly invented card games from all over the world. It has been described ...