LOO

The modern player may be forgiven if he mistakes the meaning of the name which has been attached to this poker game. In fact it is a truncation of the now obsolete lanterloo, from the French lanturlu, a word best translated by our succinct, if vulgar, fiddlesticks.

There are several variations, of the game, of which Three-card Loo, Five-Card Loo and Irish Loo are described here.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS

Loo is suitable for any number of players, though the best number is six or seven.

CARDS

The standard 52-card pack is used, with the cards ranking from Ace (high) to 2 (low), except in Five-card Loo, in which the ♣ J is the highest ranking card (see below).

The first poker player to deal puts into a pool an agreed number of units. It maybe any number of divisible by three. Three cards are then dealt, one card at a time, to each player, and to an extra hand that is known as ‘miss’. The top card of the remainder of the pack is turned up to denote the trump suit.

THE PLAY

The dealer offers the player on his immediate left the choice of refusing to play, playing with the cards dealt to him, or exchanging his cards for miss and playing with those.

In turn, each player is offered the same choice, though, of course, once a player has chosen to exchange his hand for miss, a subsequent player is reduced to choosing between playing with the cards dealt to him or No-Trumps playing the hand.

Once a player has made a decision he must stand by it, and if he has chosen not to play he throws his cards face downwards to the centre of the table. The player who first chooses to play leads to the first trick. Thereafter the player who wins a trick leads to the next.

The play is governed by the following rules:
A player must follow suit if he can, and must head the trick if he can. If a player cannot follow suit he must trump if he can, and if the trick has already been trumped he must overtrump if he can.

If the player on lead holds the Ace of trumps (or the King if the Ace has been turned up) he must lead it. If the player on lead holds two or more trumps he must lead one of them, and if there are only two players in the game he must lead the highest.

A player who fails to comply with any of these poker rules, when able to do so, is deemed to have revoked; the pool is divided among the non-offenders, and the offender pays the full amount back to the pool.

When the hand has been played those who have won tricks divide the pool between them: one-third of the amount in it to the winner of each trick.

Those who have No-Trumps a trick are looed, and must put into the pool as many units as there were in it at the beginning of the deal. Unlimited loo, however, can come very expensive, and in practice it is essential for the players to agree upon limiting the losses of looed players.

If no player is looed, the next dealer replenishes the pool as at the beginning of the game.

If every player refuses to play, the dealer takes the entire pool and the next dealer replenishes it.

If only one player chooses to play the dealer must come into the game against him, but if he holds a weak hand, he may protect himself against loss by announcing that he will play for the pool.

In this event he is No-Trumps looed if he fails to win a poker trick, and, in return for the concession, he leaves in the pool any amount to which he may be entitled by reason of his having won tricks.