4 players · You and three AI opponents · Three-life elimination match

Keep your one hidden card or try to swap it away. Avoid the lowest rank, with Cats, Horses and Cuckoos disrupting exchanges.

1. 1

   Objective

   • Avoid being left with the lowest card. Each player starts with three lives; the last player with lives remaining wins. Lives are game counters, not money.
2. 2

   Setup

   • Use the complete 40-card unsuited Cuccù pack, two copies of each rank. Lowest to highest: lion −3, mask −2, bucket −1, zero 0, I–X, inn XI, cat XII, horse XIII, hunter XIIII and cuckoo XV. The fool has special comparison rules below.
   • Play proceeds anticlockwise, beginning to the dealer's right. Deal one hidden card to the current player, wait for their decision, then deal to the next. Shuffle the full pack each round and deal from its bottom. The dealer moves to the next surviving seat each round.
3. 3

   Playing a turn

   • Keep your card or request an exchange with the next undealt player. A target dealt an ordinary card, fool, zero or negative card must exchange, then decide what to do with the card received. The dealer acts last and may keep or exchange with the bottom of the pack, without special-card penalties.
   • The cuckoo is revealed and refuses the exchange. It never loses a life. The hunter is revealed, refuses and immediately costs the requester one life. The horse is revealed and skipped: the requester tries the following player. If the dealer holds the horse, the requester exchanges with the top of the pack without special effects.
   • The cat is revealed, refuses and immediately costs the requester one life. Earlier consecutive exchanges involving the requester's current card are reversed until it returns to its original owner, skipping the same horses. Keeping a card ends that exchange chain.
   • The inn pauses the exchange. The requester may keep, or ask the innkeeper to pay if a zero loses. If accepted, both keep their cards and the innkeeper loses a life in place of the requester if the requester loses with zero. If refused, the inn must be exchanged. Its former holder then acts normally. Specials activate only when targeted by an exchange.
4. 4

   Scoring and ending

   • All players with lives remaining reveal their cards. Every lowest card loses one life, including all ties. Cards held by players already eliminated by a cat or hunter are dead and excluded. A cuckoo never loses a life, even if it is the only live card.
   • One fool ties with the lowest card. If all other cards are cuckoos, only the fool loses. Two fools rank at 14½, below only the cuckoo. Two cuckoos lose no lives.
   • Players with no lives sit out later deals. If everyone still in play reaches zero in the same round, all four players return with three lives for free. Select Next round after scoring.