Two-ten-jack is a Japanese

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 trick-taking card game

Card game

A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...

 for two players that takes its name from the three highest-scoring (and lowest-scoring) cards in the game: the 2, 10 and Jack

Jack (playing card)

A Jack, also Knave, is a playing card with a picture of a man on it. The usual rank of a jack, within its suit, is as if it were an 11 ....

in three different suits

Suit (cards)

In playing cards, a suit is one of several categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several symbols showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or in addition be indicated by the color printed on the card...

.

Preliminaries

The object of two-ten-jack is to get the most points by taking tricks containing positive point cards while avoiding tricks containing negative point cards.

Two players receive six cards each from a standard 52-card deck ranking A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 and the remaining undealt cards are placed between the players to form the stock. Non-dealer leads the first trick

Trick-taking game

A trick-taking game is a card game or tile-based game in which play centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called tricks. The object of such games then may be closely tied to the number of tricks taken, as in plain-trick games such as Whist, Contract Bridge, Napoleon, Rowboat, and...

 and winner of each trick leads to the next. Players replenish their hands between tricks by each drawing a card from the stock with the winner of the last trick drawing first. Play continues until all of the cards in the entire deck have been played. Points are then tallied before the deck is reshuffled and dealt anew.

Following, Trumping, and Speculation

In two-ten-jack a player may lead any card and the other player must play a card of the same suit if able, or otherwise must play a trump card

Trump Card

Trump Card was an American syndicated game show that aired from September 10, 1990 to September 6, 1991 and was hosted by Jimmy Cefalo. Debi Massey served as hostess and Chuck Reilly was the announcer. The show was produced by Telepictures Productions, Createl, Ltd., & Fiedler-Berlin Productions...

 if able. If a player has neither cards in the lead suit or trump, then any other card may be played. The highest trump card, or the highest card of the lead suit if no trumps were played, takes the trick

In two-ten-jack hearts are always the trump suit and the ace of spades

Ace of Spades

At least in English-speaking countries, the ace of spades is traditionally seen as the highest card in the deck of playing cards, although the actual value of the card varies from game to game...

is a special trump card known as speculation ranking above all of the hearts. Rules for playing speculation are as follows:

• If a trump (heart) is lead, a player may follow with speculation and must play speculation if no other trumps are held in the hand.
• If a spade is lead, a player may follow with speculation and must likewise play speculation if no other spades are held in the hand.
• If a club or diamond is lead and the other player has neither of these, speculation may be played, and must be played if no other trumps are available.
• A player leading speculation must declare it as either a spade or trump.

Scoring and winning

Cards are worth the following point values:

• 2, 10 and J are worth +5 each
• 2♣, 10♣ and J♣ are worth -5 each
• 2♠, 10♠, J♠ and A♠ are worth +1 each
• 6 is worth +1 point

Hence the total number of card points per deal is +5. Winner is the first player to reach 31 points.