How to Play the Card Game Frogs in the Pond

Frogs in the Pond is the latest card game we’ve learned how to play. It is fairly simple to play and yet it’s a bit cutthroat and engaging. It’s said to be a card game for 2 to 5 players and is best played in teams of two.

Frogs in the Pond is a trick taking game like Rolling Stone, Linger Longer and Go Boom but is a completely unique game to its self.

In this post we’ll cover setting up Frogs in the Pond, how to play, winning, different amount of players and rule variations.

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Setting up Frogs in the Pond Card Game

Everyone needs the same amount of cards for this game so setting it up depends on how many players you have. For this post we’re going to cover a three player game. See below for player variation set ups.

For a three player game, no cards need to be removed. Jokers are not included in this game.

If you need some new cute card games, you can check out the selection here. (Canadians here.)

Playing Frogs in the Pond

To start, the dealer deals two cards at a time until all players have 13 cards. The remaining 13 cards are left in a stack and are the Frogs in the Pond.

The player to the dealer’s left chooses one card from her hand to place in the middle. The next two players chose a card to play. The card must follow suit if possible.

The player who played the highest card in the suit that was lead wins the trick and collects all the cards played and the top card –the top Frog in the Pond.

Aces are high.

The player looks at the frog card but doesn’t share it with anyone. She then adds it to her won cards.

Now the player who won the trick gets to start the next one.

When it’s not possible to follow suit, the player losses 10 points and can chose any other card to play.

Play continues until all the cards have been won.

Scoring

The scoring is what makes Frogs in the Pond interesting. The points are as follows:

10s are wroth 10 points.
5s are worth 5 points.
Aces are 4 points.
Kings are 3 points.
Queens are 2 pints.
Jacks are 1 point.

All other cards are worth no points and are set aside when scoring.

It is important to note that although the 5 is worth points, any card higher in numerical value will win the trick when player. For example, if a player has played the 5 of Hearts and another player has played the 6 of hearts, the player with the 6 would win the trick.

All of the cards worth points that a player has won will score points—including any frog cards. Make sure to take away any points that players lost when not able to follow suit.

Round Two

The player to the left of the first dealer now takes over the roll. The game is played the same as the fist round.

Winning Frogs in the Pond

The first player to get 100 points wins.

Player Variations

Two Player Frogs in the Pond

For two players, remove one 2 from the deck. Remember to make a pile of cards for the frogs.

When playing with five players, all players get 8 cards with 8 frogs. All of the 2s are removed from the deck.

When you are playing with four players, two 2s are removed from the deck. You can play Frogs in the Pond where everyone scores for themselves.  Or you can play in team of two. When playing in teams of two, there is no table talk allowed. The player who wins the trick is allowed to see the frog card but can’t share it with his partner.

The rules say that this game is best played as a team game, however, we found that to be wrong. It’s much harder to follow suit and you can easily rack up more minus points than there are points to be won. When we played this way we stayed in the navigate numbers most of the time. We also lowered it to 50 points to win.

Frogs in the Pond Rule Variations

Rule 1: There is a rule variation that has the jack of spades being worth another minus 10 points. He is said to the Tadpole of the game.

Rule 2: While we were playing, we created a rule variation too. When playing two player, if you play a 2 then your opponent has to change the suit that she is leading with. For example, if she was playing hearts and you play a two then the next trick can’t start with hearts. This makes it a little bit more fair as you can easily rack up a ton of points by not following suit.

Say Ribbit

Frogs in the Pond card game is fun and easy to learn. We thought it would be too simple for us, that is that it was for younger kids, but we found that, although simple, it is very engaging. So step up to the pond and give it a try and see how many frogs you can get.

You can also try out the card games Go Boom, 31, Boodle and Hearts. Be sure to check out our Family Game Shelf shop for tons of seasonal and holiday games here.