Black Lady
Black Lady is an extremely combative variant of the card game Whist that is popular in the United Kingdom and is similar to the North American game Hearts. It is commonly played among large groups of players, typically 8 to 10, using two decks of cards, or it can be played by as few as three players using a single deck.
Main rules
The game proceeds by trick-taking in the standard way, and there are no trumps.
Certain cards are listed as penalty cards, and have assigned penalty values. When a trick is taken which contains any penalty cards, the winner of the trick is penalised by the total number of these penalty points. Penalty points are counted at the end of each hand, and each player's running total of penalty points is adjusted as appropriate.
If one player takes every penalty card in the pack, called 'going for the lot', he can choose to do one of two things; either zeroise his running penalty total, or double everyone else's.
The penalty cards are :
Queen of Spades: 50 points (hence 'Black Lady')
