500 House Rules

These are our house rules for the card game 500. Some are designed to encourage higher bidding and thus a more interesting game, while others just clarify ambiguous rules.

  • Players can re-enter bidding when it is their turn, even if they passed in an earlier bidding round.
  • The player with the successful bid can change their bid to any higher bid before picking up the kitty, but this restarts the bidding which continues as normal until three players pass in a row.
  • Closed misere is scored as 130 points and this bid can be beaten by any bid of 7 or higher.
  • Open misere is scored as 230 points and this bid can be beaten by any bid of 8 or higher.
  • In no-trumps you can lead the joker and nominate its suit without constraint (i.e. it doesn’t matter whether you have played that suit before).
  • In no-trumps you never have to play the joker.
  • In no-trumps you cannot play the joker on a trick if you have a card of that suit.