How to Play
Ireland's partnership card game where the 5 of trumps, the Jack of trumps, and the Ace of Hearts are always the three supreme cards. Two sides race to 25 points through quick five-card hands, with no spoilt deals possible.
Twenty-Five (Irish: cúig is fiche) is a trick-taking partnership card game and the direct link between Ireland's ancient Spoil Five and Atlantic Canada's Forty-Five. It uses the same eccentric trump ranking as its relatives: the 5 of trumps is supreme, the Jack of trumps is second, and the Ace of Hearts is always the third-highest trump no matter which suit is named. Two partnerships of two, or three partnerships of two seated alternately for six players, contest 5 tricks per deal, each worth 5 points, racing to be the first side to reach 25 points. Because only two sides ever compete for the 5 tricks in a deal, one side is mathematically guaranteed to win at least 3 of them, so unlike Spoil Five there is no spoilt hand and no pool to carry over: every deal produces a clear result for one side or the other.
Quick Reference
- 4 players in 2 partnerships, or 6 players in 3 partnerships of two, seated alternately. Standard 52-card deck.
- Deal 5 cards each in a 3-then-2 pattern; turn the next card face-up to name trump.
- Holder of the Ace of trumps may rob the turned-up card before play begins.
- Eldest hand leads first; the trick winner leads the next trick.
- Follow suit if possible, but the top trumps (5, Jack, Ace of Hearts) may renege on a lower trump lead.
- Black non-trump suits invert: the 2 ranks high and the 10 ranks low.
- Highest card by rank wins the trick; a trump beats any card of the suit led.
- Each trick won is worth 5 points to that partnership; 5 tricks total 25 points in one deal.
- No bonus trick exists, unlike Forty-Five; trick points alone decide the running score.
- First partnership to 25 points or more, across as many deals as needed, wins the game.
Players
Twenty-Five is played by 4 players in two fixed partnerships of two, seated so that partners face each other across the table, or by 6 players in two partnerships of three seated alternately around the table. A single hand plays quickly, in 2 to 4 minutes, and a full game to 25 points usually takes several deals, about 20 to 40 minutes in total.
Card Deck
One standard 52-card French-suited deck, jokers removed. As in Spoil Five and Forty-Five, the rank of every card depends on whether it is a trump, a non-trump red card, or a non-trump black card; see the Card Ranking items under Gameplay below. The Ace of Hearts is always a trump, no matter which suit is named.
Objective
Win tricks to score 5 points each for your partnership. Because a deal always splits 5 tricks between only two sides, one side always wins 3, 4, or 5 tricks and the other wins the rest. The first partnership to accumulate 25 points or more, counted across as many deals as it takes, wins the game.
Setup and Deal
- Agree a dealer by any method, often the player who cuts the highest card.
- The dealer shuffles, the player to the dealer's right cuts, and the dealer deals 5 cards to each player clockwise, starting with the player on the dealer's left, in two rounds of 3 then 2 (or 2 then 3, kept consistent for the rest of the game).
- Turn the next card of the remaining stock face-up. Its suit becomes trump for the deal.
- Robbing the pack: whichever player holds the Ace of trumps, the dealer included, may exchange any card from hand for the face-up trump card before the first trick is led. The discarded card is buried face-down under the stock.
- Set the rest of the stock aside face-down for the deal; it is not used again this hand.
Gameplay
- The eldest hand, the player to the dealer's left, leads the first trick. Each later trick is led by whoever won the previous one.
- Following suit: if a non-trump suit is led, you must follow that suit if you can. If trumps are led, you must play a trump if possible, with one exception below.
- Reneging privilege: the three top trumps, the 5 of trumps, the Jack of trumps, and the Ace of Hearts, may legally refuse to follow when a lower trump is led, holding their power in reserve for a later trick.
- Trump ranking (top to bottom): 5 of trumps, Jack of trumps, Ace of Hearts, Ace of trumps (unless trumps are Hearts), then the remaining trumps by the colour rules below.
- Red trump order: K, Q, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2 (high to low, below the top three trumps and the Ace).
- Black trump order: K, Q, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (high to low; the pip cards invert so the 2 outranks the 10).
- Non-trump red suits: K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (the Ace of Hearts is always a trump, so only the Ace of Diamonds appears here, ranking below the Jack).
- Non-trump black suits: K, Q, J, A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (the Ace ranks below the Jack and the 2 is the highest pip card).
- The highest card played to a trick, by these rankings, wins it for its side. A trump beats every card of the suit actually led.
Scoring
- Each trick won scores 5 points for the winning partnership; 5 tricks total 25 points in a single deal.
- Unlike Forty-Five, there is no separate bonus for the highest trump played; trick points are the only points on offer.
- Running totals carry across deals. If one side wins all 5 tricks in a deal, called a march, they score the full 25 points at once and usually end the game outright.
Winning
Play as many deals as needed. The moment a partnership's cumulative score reaches 25 points or more, that partnership wins the game immediately; some tables stop counting further tricks in a deal once 25 has already been reached, since it cannot change the outcome. If both sides could reach 25 in the same deal, the non-dealing side's tricks are conventionally counted first.
Common Variations
- Spoil Five: the individual, pool-based ancestor for 2 to 10 players with no partnerships. Because more than two players can contend for the 5 tricks, a hand can be spoilt if nobody reaches 3.
- Forty-Five: the Canadian Maritime extension that raises the target to 45 points and adds a 5-point Game bonus for the highest trump played each deal.
- Auction Forty-Fives (120s): adds a competitive bidding phase for the right to name trump and raises the target to 120 points.
- Six-hand Twenty-Five: played by 6 players in two partnerships of three seated alternately, exactly as described above, instead of the 4-player game.
Tips and Strategy
- Hold the 5 of trumps and Jack of trumps back until a trick is worth winning; both are unbeatable, so playing them early on a cheap trick wastes their power.
- The Ace of Hearts is a trump even when Hearts is not the named suit. Count it as your third-best trump in every deal.
- Use the reneging privilege deliberately: if you hold a top trump and a lower trump is led, keep it back for a trick that actually decides the deal.
- Remember the black-suit pip inversion. The 2 of Spades beats the 10 of Spades when Spades is trump, which catches new partnerships out.
- Because only two sides compete, count tricks as they fall: once your side has won 3, the deal is already decided in your favour regardless of the last 2 cards.
- Lead your partner's known strong suit when you hold no top trump yourself; the partnership's total tricks matter, not who personally wins them.
Glossary
- Trick: one card played by each active player in clockwise order; the highest card by ranking wins it.
- Trump: the suit that beats all other suits for the current deal, set by the turned-up card.
- Top trumps: the 5 of trumps, Jack of trumps, and Ace of Hearts; unbeatable except by each other.
- Reneging: the privilege of the top three trumps to refuse to follow suit when a lower trump is led.
- Robbing the pack: exchanging a card in hand for the trump Ace when it is the turned-up card.
- March: winning all 5 tricks of a single deal, scoring the full 25 points at once.
- Eldest hand: the player to the dealer's left, who leads the first trick.
Tips & Strategy
Hold the top three trumps, the 5, the Jack, and the Ace of Hearts, for the trick that actually decides the deal rather than playing them at the first opportunity. Track tricks by side rather than by player, since only the partnership total matters, and remember that the black-suit pip order inverts so low cards can outrank high ones.
Because the deal always resolves in favour of one side or the other, the key strategic question in Twenty-Five is not whether your side will win any tricks but how many, and whether that total moves your partnership meaningfully closer to 25. Holding the top three trumps back through the reneging privilege lets a partnership bank its strongest cards for the tricks most likely to be contested, rather than spending them on tricks the side was going to win regardless.
Trivia & Fun Facts
A partnership that takes all 5 tricks in one deal, a march, scores the entire 25 points needed to win in a single hand. Because Twenty-Five needs only two sides rather than Spoil Five's up to ten individual players, it is the version of the family most often taught to newcomers before they graduate to Spoil Five's pool play or Forty-Five's higher target.
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01Why does Twenty-Five never produce a spoilt or unclaimed hand, unlike its ancestor Spoil Five?Answer Because Twenty-Five is played by exactly two partnerships, and 5 tricks can never split evenly between only two sides; one side always wins at least 3 of the 5, so a result is guaranteed every deal.
History & Culture
Twenty-Five descends from the 16th-century Irish and Scottish game of Maw by way of Spoil Five, adapting the same idiosyncratic trump ranking into fixed partnership play. Converting Spoil Five's free-for-all pool into two-sided teams removed the possibility of a deadlocked, unclaimed hand, since 5 tricks can never split evenly between exactly two sides. Irish emigrants carried the game to Atlantic Canada, where it was further extended into the higher-scoring Forty-Five.
Twenty-Five sits at the heart of the Spoil Five family that Irish card-game societies consider part of the national card-playing heritage, alongside Spoil Five itself and the Atlantic Canadian Forty-Five. It remains a common household and pub-table game across Ireland, valued as an accessible partnership entry point into a trump-ranking system that has otherwise changed little since the 16th century.
Variations & House Rules
Spoil Five strips away the partnerships and returns to individual pool play, where a hand can be spoilt if no one wins 3 tricks. Forty-Five raises the target score to 45 and adds a 5-point bonus for the highest trump played each deal. Auction Forty-Fives layers a bidding phase for the right to name trump on top of that and plays to 120 points. Six-hand Twenty-Five simply extends the base game to three partnerships of two.
For a shorter session, lower the winning target from 25 to 15 points. Groups new to the family can drop the robbing-the-pack rule at first to simplify the deal, then reintroduce it once the trump ranking feels natural. Playing six-handed with three partnerships of two is an easy way to include extra players without changing any other rule.
