Help me remember a card game.

May 26, 2023 10:53 AM

I played a card game - sort of like golf - called Hanif and I want to confirm the rules.

I learned a card game called "Hanif" from some Dutch people, who learned it from a Yemeni guy. (The game is maybe not Yemeni, though - I don't know where he learned it.)

The game plays like a Golf variant. It's played with a standard deck (without jokers? not sure). Each player gets 4 cards facedown, looks at 2, and draws to replace cards. You are aiming for the lowest total. You win if you have the lowest total when someone calls "hanif". You play until someone hits 100 (200? or something).

The mechanics I remember that are different than "standard" golf:
- 4 cards
- if you got to a certain score, your score was reduced
- You could drop cards if someone discarded a card that matched one of yours that you knew. You could do the same with someone else's cards if you had looked at them. If you messed this up, you had to add a card
- certain cards meant actions. I believe drawing (or revealing from your face-down cards) meant:
- 7/8 - look at one of your own cards
- 9/10 - look at one of someone else's cards
- Jack - don't remember, maybe a penalty?
- Q - swap one of your cards and one of someone else's without looking at what cards they are
- black king - minus 3? maybe? red kings nothing.
- ace - look at one of your cards, look at one of your opponent's cards, and swap one of your cards and one of your opponents

I recognize this is a game with endless variants and house styles. I'm hoping for some reference to fill in the gaps in my mind!

posted by quadrilaterals to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (3 answers total)

Could it actually be Yaniv? It sounds quite similar to your description.
posted by urbanlenny at 11:09 AM on May 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

If it is Yaniv, the Pagat site has a very thorough description.
posted by vincebowdren at 3:09 PM on May 26, 2023

Best answer: The name sounds so much like Yaniv, and the genesis makes sense. But in the game I'm referring to, four cards are placed facedown on the table and you cannot look except at the start (as opposed to five in your hand that you look at throughout the game). Additionally, in the game I'm familiar with, you cannot play sets or runs on the active deck.

I did some more searching and I think the game I'm talking about is very much like this ruleset for Cabo, which is a Golf variant. But that doesn't totally explain the name, which does seem to come from Yaniv...
posted by quadrilaterals at 7:46 AM on May 28, 2023 [1 favorite]