A week ago, I had the opportunity to play cartas with a group of friends in Barcelona. We played a game they called hijoputa (literally, “son of a whore”).
First of all, the baraja or deck is different. In our deck, there were 40 cards (cartas o naipes), divided into four palos (suits). These are:
- oros — coins
- bastos — sticks (I don’t know why they’re not called bastones, which actually are sticks, according to the dictionary!)
- espadas — swords
- copas — cups
In each palo, there are cards from 1 to 12 (but skipping eights and nines, for some reason — though some decks have them). We were five players, so we mixed two decks together. The basic idea is like many card games — be the first to get rid of all your cards (you start with five). Each turn, you put one (or more) down (tirar), always matching the number or palo of the last-played card. If you can’t put anything down, you must draw a card. If you still can’t play, you draw a second card. Whether or not you can play that card, you turn stops after a maximum of two draws.
Certain numbers have special names and special functions in the game, when you play them:
- as — number one, ace. After playing this card, you name another player, who must draw (robar o coger) one card.
- dos — number two. Okay, so dos isn’t really a special name, but the card does have a special “power”. The next player must draw two, unless he has a two he can play from his hand, in which case the following player draws four (but he can’t play another two and “save himself”).
- siete — number seven. No special name here, either, but has a special effect: ¡Cambio de dirección! Yes, a change of direction — if you were going clockwise it switches to counter-clockwise (and vice versa). If a player puts down multiple sevens in one turn, the direction only switches once (as if he had just played a single seven).
- sota — number ten (diez). Nothing special for the first person who plays one (or more) of these in a turn, but if the subsequent player puts one down, he can change the palo to whatever he wants.
- caballo — number eleven (once). What do horses do well? Jump! When someone plays a caballo, play “jumps” over the next person (so they miss their turn).
- rey — number twelve (doce). Every time someone puts down a rey, they must immediately put down another twelve — or a card of the same palo — right away. If they can’t, they must draw a card.
Another important tidbit — when you play your second last card, you must immediately shout out “¡ultima!” — meaning “last card!” — otherwise, if someone catches you with only one card, they force you to draw two cards (immediately). I think you’re actually supposed to shout “¡Hijoputa!” (hence the name of the game) — I guess we were playing the polite version (after all, there were young kids present).
To score, simply add up the number of cards (not the values) each player has after someone wins a round. Keep a tally…obviously lower scores are better!
There are many variations on these rules, of course — these are the ones that were explained to me and that we played. The important thing seems to be that you must agree on the cards’ “special powers” before you begin playing, so that everyone understands. After that, the rules you follow are the ones you agreed upon — if you forgot something, too bad, it’s not a valid rule (for the duration of the current game at least).
Tons of card games (and lists of games indexed by country!) can be found here (though I didn’t find the hijoputa rules… But the game would be classified in the Eights Group (i.e. a variation on what we call “Crazy Eights”).
Some Spanish cards. Top row shows all four palos (espadas, copas, oros, bastos) of number five. Middle row shows the six “special” cards in various palos (as, dos, siete, sota, caballo, rey). Bottom row is the as de oros.