September Birthday Notes - Sept 3

Today the birthday celebration includes FIVE CROWNS.  Once upon a time we played Euchre (always a small town Iowa game to pass the day away), and five hundred.  Never Bridge that is for the serious player and we are never serious.  So this afternoon it will be "Five Crowns" - never mind how many odd or even number will come to play, but one does need a unique card set.

We find, that since the wild card changes from hand-to-hand, as does the number of cards dealt each player, that a score card is helpful.  Here is our score card.  Download it and print 4 to a page.
So the official birthday party card game has just become Five Crowns.  Have a great time playing it with friends.

The Backstory:
The game is a rummy style game that has no Aces and no twos.  There are five suits - black spades, red hearts, yellow stars, green clovers, and blue diamonds; and two of every card in the deck.  Jokers and the featured numeric card are wild.  For example on the eight hand, eights and jokers are wild, and each player gets dealt eight cards.  On the ten hand, tens and jokers are wild, and each player gets dealt ten cards.  The object is to create enough runs or books in your hand that you can lay down all your cards at one time.  The first one to do that forces the others to earn points (not a good thing).  After the first player lays down, each of the other players get one more chance to draw (and discard), construct as many runs or books as they can, and lay those down.  The cards that could not be booked or put into a run count as points and must be recorded on the score card.  Zero is the best score.

This card game has only been around since 1996 when Set Enterprises, Inc. developed the game.  Set Enterprises, Inc. is a game publishing company based in located in Fountain Hills, Arizona.  Complete play instructions can be found on the Set Game website at https://www.setgame.com/five-crowns,
The company was founded by Marsha Jean Falco who was researching canine genetics - and ended up with a canine focused matching game titled SET. She was doing genetic research in Cambridge, England at the time the game was developed.  She has a M.S. in population genetics from Michigan State University and her B.S. in animal science from Arizona State University.  SET was released in  1991 (but was first developed in 1974) Later she developed several other card games before releasing Five Crowns in 1996.   Marsha has retired and Marsha and Robert Falco's daughter Colette Falco runs the company (2017).