The goal of the game
Sweep is a capturing game, not a trick-taking one. Each turn you try to claim cards from the table by matching their value with a card from your hand. Points come from which cards you capture, not how many tricks you win — and the first team to 100 points across as many deals as it takes wins the match.
What you need
- Four players in two fixed partnerships.
- One standard 52-card deck (no jokers).
- A running score across deals, up to 100 points.
Teams and seating
Partners sit across the table from one another, exactly as in Delha Pakkad. If the seats are numbered 1–4 clockwise, 1 & 3 are partners and 2 & 4 are partners.
The deal
Each deal starts with four cards placed face-up on the table — the floor. Then every player is dealt 4 cards into their hand. The remaining cards stay face-down as a hidden stock. There is no trump suit in Sweep.
Card values
Every card has a plain capture value from Ace to King, with no suit ranking above another:
A=1, 2=2, 3=3, 4=4, 5=5, 6=6, 7=7, 8=8, 9=9, 10=10, J=11, Q=12, K=13
Your turn: capture, build, or discard
On your turn, play exactly one card from your hand and choose one of three things to do with it:
- Capture. If loose cards on the floor (or an existing build) add up to exactly your played card’s value, you may claim them. A 7 can capture a lone 7, or a 4 and a 3 together, or a build worth 7. Capturing is always your choice — you can leave a matching capture on the table on purpose, setting a trap for later.
- Build. Combine your card with one or more floor cards to create a pile worth a specific value, as long as you hold a second card in your hand worth that same value — otherwise nobody, including you, could ever capture it. Any player may later add to that build or capture it once they hold a matching card, not just whoever started it.
- Discard (trail). If you don’t want to capture or build, simply lay your card face-up onto the floor as a new loose card, even if it happens to match something already there.
Refilling from the stock
Once every player’s hand is empty, check the stock. If cards remain, everyone is dealt 4 more and play continues from where it left off. Once the stock itself runs out and hands are empty, the deal is over.
How scoring works
When a deal ends, each team's captured pile is scored:
- Every spade captured is worth 1 point.
- The 10 of diamonds is worth 2 points.
- The 2 of clubs is worth 1 point.
- Every ace is worth 1 point (so the ace of spades alone is worth 2 — 1 for being an ace, 1 for being a spade).
- Any capture that clears the floor completely — every loose card and every build — earns a 1-point sweep bonus at the moment it happens.
All other cards are worth 0 points; capturing them is only useful for denying your opponents, or building toward a bigger capture.
Winning the match
Scores carry over from deal to deal. The first team to reach 100 points wins the match; if nobody has, a fresh deal begins with the next seat dealing.
A quick worked example
The floor holds a loose 3 and a loose 4. You play a 7 and claim both, capturing 3 points’ worth of cards in one move (their point value depends on what they actually are — a spade 3 and a spade 4 would be worth 2 points, for instance). Later, an opponent holding a second 4 could instead have built the 3 and 4 together into a build worth 7, hoping to capture it themselves on a future turn with their own 7 — unless you got there first.
Once the mechanics click, the depth is in the decisions — when to grab a capture and when to leave it as a trap. Head to the Sweep strategy guide next.