The Linger Longer card game is a fast play, easy to learn card game that will become a family favorite. It also goes by many other names such as Lift Smoke, Sift Smoke and Last In. It is a fast playing with a similar play time to other card games such as James Bond, Go Boom and Golf. It’s an easy trick taking game prefect for teaching before moving on the games like Hearts and 3 to 13. It’s perfect when you only a few minutes to play. Let’s get into the rules.
Setting Up the Linger Longer Card Game
You will need one deck of cards with the jokers removed. How many cards you deal depends on the number of players. Linger Longer is a game for 3 to 6 players.
For a 3 player game, you deal 8 cards to each player. If there are 4 players, they each get 6 cards and if there are 5 players each gets 5 cards. Last, if there are 6 players, then 4 cards are dealt to each player.
To summarize: 3 players = 8 cards, 4 players = 6 cards, 5 players = 5 cards, 6 players = 4 cards.
Playing Linger Longer Card Game
After dealing the correct amount of cards, the dealer will turn up her last card for everyone to see. This is important as this card tells players what the trump suit is. When all players have seen the card, the dealer adds the card to her hand.
The rest of the deck goes in the middle of the playing area as the draw pile.
The player to the dealer’s left goes first. This player can choose any card in his hand to lead the trick.
The player to his left is next to choose a card to play. If she has a card in the suit that the first player put down, then she must follow suit. When a player has no cards in the suit that is lead, she must then play a card from the trump suit. If she has neither the suit or a trump card then she can play any other card.
After every player has played a card, the player with the highest ranked card of the suit lead wins the trick. However, if there was a trump car played then it wins the trick. If there were more than one trump card played, then the highest ranked trump card wins the trick.
Aces are high in Linger Longer.
When a player wins a trick, he gets to draw the top card from the draw pile and adds it to his hand. All other players, do not draw a card. The played cards and set to the side.
For next round, the player who won the trick gets to lead the new trick.
When a player runs out of cards, then they are out of the game.
In the event that the draw pile runs out before there is a winner, shuffle all of the played cards and create a new draw pile.
Winning Linger Longer Card Game
The player who is the last with cards is the winner.
Variations
Dealer Pick
Some variations of Linger Longer have players being deal face up cards to determine order of play with any ties getting a second card. Others, have players being dealt cards one at a time, face up, until someone receives a jack. When a player gets a jack, he is then the dealer.
Number of Cards
Some variations have the number of cards dealt being equal to the number of players. Therefore, if you have 4 players then each get 4 cards.
Lift Smoke Card Game
In the variation called Lift Smoke, the trump card is not the dealers last card. Instead, the dealer flips over the first card of the draw pile and that becomes the trump suit. This card is then set aside and is not played with for this game.
Scoring
To keep score in Linger Longer, the last player with cards, scores one point for each card left in her hand. In this game, players will play many rounds or hands. The number of hands played is usually the same as the number of players. Therefore, if there are 5 players, then you would play 5 hands of the game. The winner would be the player with the most points.
Our Favorite Variation
We like to play with the trump card being the top card of the draw pile. We also like to play for points as we usually end up playing several rounds of Linger Longer as the game is so quick to play.
Linger Longer for the Win
This is a fast, easy to play card game that makes a great fill in game or one for any time where you only have a few minutes.
To make family game night more fun, add some cute playing cards to your game self. Here is a great selection, we like these animal cards. Canadians can get their cards here.
And if you’re looking for even more fun, be sure to check our card game section for rules and how-to-plays on lots of game to find your next family favorite. You can also check out our Family Game Shelf Shop for some fun games.
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