much information as possible to their teammates while simultaneously giving away as little information as possible to their opponents. Thus good strategy consists not only of asking for cards that one needs, but in not prematurely divulging the existence of all the books one has. Players need both strategy and memory skills to win the game. Another common strategy is the 'stalemate breaker'. If members of a team come to the conclusion that all the cards in a set are all held by their team and they can correctly attribute them, they don't declare the book immediately. This book is kept as a stalemate breaker. If at a later point in the game a player in that team is on the verge of finishing a book (i.e. he knows which opponent has which card) but is cannot get a turn, the stalemate-breaker is used. A teammate, whose turn it is, can declare the stalemate breaking book and pass the turn onto the player who was stuck. Variations Several variations exist, based on how cards are grouped into books: Other cards can be eliminated from the pack instead of the 8s e.g. 2s or 7s. The game can be played with 54 cards by adding the 2 jokers. The two jokers plus the four cards that are normally removed would form their own half-suit. Thus having nine half-suits makes it impossible for the two teams to tie; unless one of the sets is lost as a null set (depending on house rules; see below). The final amount would only consist of 8 sets. One variant uses sets of four cards with matching numbers rather than lows and highs of suits. This would result in 13 sets each having the same face value. In addition, several house rules may be enforced, depending on the players: Players may be required to declare a book as soon as they hold all the cards of that book. Players may be required to announce when they have one card remaining, or announce and retire if they have no cards remaining. A high book scores twice as many points as a low book. A variant played by some advanced players is to allow people to ask for cards they already possess, in order to confuse opponents. This variant is not very common among most players, because it can make the game very complicated and confusing. When a