Totally Not T9

Totally Not T9 is a set of two low-luck trick-taking games. Both games are nominally postal themed.

The first game, called Totally Not T9, is played over two rounds (or three rounds with the optional variant). Players draft their cards each round. As the trick play occurs, the deck will deplete, so there will be 11 tricks in the first round, but only 6 in the second round. Players gain cards into their score piles along the way, with the highest card taking the lowest card in the trick, and the lowest card taking the highest. At the end of the game, the player getting the closest to or reaching 40 points without going over 40 wins.

The second game, Stamp Out Bootleggers, is a one-hand trick taking game. The illegal speakeasies don’t want any particular letters (i.e. cards) traced back to them, so no player owns their hand of cards. On their turn, a player will play a card from any of the four hands of cards on the table. Each hand can only be played once into each trick. Players gain cards into their score piles for winning tricks, with each card being worth its face value in points. The player getting the closest to or reaching 40 points at the end of the game without going over 40 wins. But before final scoring, the postal inspectors (one suit) will make arrests of the bootleggers (the other three suits). For better or worse, this will keep those cards from counting towards a player’s score.

The name of the set is a joke. T9 was a 35 person trick-taking game played by mail; it was created for the T9 event. This was also created, in part, for the T9 event, but the name was already taken by the postal game, so this is called Totally Not T9.

—description from the designer