How to play Manni
Manni is a three-player Icelandic trick-taking game — this is Hornafjarðar Manni, the variation from Hornafjörður in the south-east of Iceland. You play against Ásta and Hjörtur. Each hand is twelve tricks and every player is measured against the same target: four tricks. Everything above four is a plus point, everything below is a minus point, and the two columns are counted separately until the game ends.
Before the deal the deck is cut, and the card revealed sets the contract for the hand:
- 2 to 5 — Nullo. No trump, and the ace becomes the lowest card. Scoring flips: take fewer than four tricks to earn plus points.
- 6 to 9 — that suit is trump. Any trump beats any card of another suit, and trump may be led whenever you like.
- 10 to ace — no trump. Highest card of the suit led simply wins.
Then come the cards. The dealer deals 4-3-3-3: four cards to a face-down pile in the middle called the Manni, then three to each player, repeated until the deck is gone — twelve cards each and sixteen in the Manni. Now everybody exchanges: throw away any number of cards and draw the same number off the top of the Manni. The player left of the dealer goes first and may swap up to seven, the player right of the dealer up to five, and the dealer takes whatever is left. Discarded cards are out of the game for good. Swapping nothing is always allowed.
Play is plain Whist: follow suit if you can, otherwise throw anything; the highest trump wins the trick, or the highest card of the suit led if no trump was played. The winner leads the next trick. The game ends the moment somebody reaches ten plus points — then everyone subtracts their minus points and the highest net total wins.
- Click or drag — tap a card or drag it to the middle to play it. During the exchange, click cards to raise them (or drag them onto the Manni) and press Exchange.
- Tricks / target — each seat shows tricks taken against the four-trick par.
- Score table — the + / − row keeps the two tallies apart, exactly as they are counted at the table.
Strategy tips for Manni
- Exchange for shape, not just for honours. Under a trump contract, throwing the last two cards of a weak suit is worth more than throwing two middling cards from different suits — a void lets you ruff, and ruffing is how you get past four tricks.
- Under Nullo, throw your kings and queens. The ace is the lowest card in a Nullo hand, so keep every ace you are dealt and dump the picture cards that cannot duck a trick.
- Remember what left the game. Your own discards are gone for good, and so are the other players'. If you threw four diamonds, the suit is shorter than the odds suggest for everyone.
- The dealer's small exchange is not a punishment. Dealing last means you see how many cards the others took: if both swapped the maximum, only four cards are left in the Manni — but you also know they were unhappy with their hands.
- Four tricks is safety, not victory. Nobody scores at exactly par, so a flat hand costs you nothing. When your hand is mediocre, aim to land exactly on four and let the other two fight over the difference.
- Watch the plus column, not the total. The game ends on ten plus points, so a player who is far ahead on plus points sets the clock. If they are about to finish and you are behind, you need a big hand now — not a safe one.
- Lead your long suit early under no trump. With twelve cards each, a five-card suit headed by the ace and king will usually bring in three tricks before anybody is void enough to stop you.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Manni in the card game Manni?
The Manni is the face-down pile of sixteen cards dealt to the middle of the table — the word is usually translated as "chap". Before play begins each player may throw away cards from their hand and draw the same number off the top of the Manni. The player to the dealer's left may swap up to seven cards, the player to the dealer's right up to five, and the dealer takes whatever is left over, which is four cards if the other two swapped the maximum.
How is the trump suit decided in Manni?
By the cut, before the cards are dealt. The player to the dealer's right cuts the deck and the revealed card sets the contract for the hand: a 2, 3, 4 or 5 means Nullo, a 6, 7, 8 or 9 makes that card's suit trump, and a 10, jack, queen, king or ace means the hand is played with no trump at all. Nobody bids — the deck decides.
What is a Nullo contract in Manni?
Nullo is the reverse hand. There is no trump suit, the ace becomes the lowest card in every suit, and you are trying to take as few tricks as possible: you score a plus point for every trick below four and a minus point for every trick above it. It is the only contract in which the ace is low, which turns a hand full of aces from a liability into a gift.
How does scoring work in Manni?
Each of the three players is measured against four tricks. Under a trump or no-trump contract you gain one plus point for every trick above four and one minus point for every trick below four; under Nullo it is the other way round. Plus and minus points are tallied in separate columns. The game ends as soon as somebody has ten or more plus points — at that moment every player subtracts their minus points and the highest net total wins.
Why did I get a minus point when I took four tricks?
Four tricks is exactly par, so four tricks scores nothing at all — no plus and no minus. Three tricks is one minus point and five tricks is one plus point. With twelve tricks shared between three players somebody has to fall below par, so the safest hands are the ones where you can steer yourself to exactly four.
Where is Manni from?
Manni is a traditional Icelandic trick-taking game with many local variants. The version played here is Hornafjarðar Manni, from Hornafjörður in the south-east corner of Iceland — the same variation cardgames.io uses. It sits somewhere between Whist and the Sergeant Major family of games, which share its kitty exchange and fixed trick target.
More free card games
Manni's cousin on this site is Lockup, a four-player trick game where clubs bench you for whole tricks. For the classic no-bidding trick game try Whist, add bidding with Spades, or play the trump-picking two-team game Euchre.